


We're Alive - The Kids

by VerucaSol



Category: We're Alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 23:53:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 18
Words: 49,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20200270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerucaSol/pseuds/VerucaSol
Summary: Private school kids find an escape from the zombie apocalypse.





	1. Chapter 1

Silence accompanies me as I wake. I would have expected to hear the annoying screeching of the alarm. I hit it for maybe the third time, to snooze just a little longer. I don’t like getting up in the morning. Silence, however, was what I heard, or rather did not hear. No alarm, no ceiling fan, not even the ever present noise of the other students. That is the one thing about boarding school they don’t tell you. It is the one secret those of us unfortunately enough to attend a boarding school know, all too well. Life in a boarding school is hectic, its noisy, and its never private.

My room is warm, uncomfortably warm. A typical sunny California morning, the sun is up, the air is cool off the ocean, but in my room, its hot. I would try to open a window, but as normal, they are locked down. The faculty has not unlocked the sliders yet. They do that to keep them down in the winter, to keep the dorms warm. Next month they are supposed to unlock them, but it would be nice right now. 

I slowly crawl out of bed, sitting on the side, pushing my hair out of my face. I know I am going to get in trouble again, if I show up for first period looking like I just got out of bed. Maybe if I get dressed and look like I have been up for a while, I can claim I thought I had free study today. Heck, I might even get out of it. I doubt it, but it’s worth a try. The worst that can happen is I get detention, again. So I get up and start to get myself together.

It is at this point I notice, the power is out. When I flip the switch to the bathroom, to start a quick shower, the light and fan fail to come on. I flip it on and off a couple times, like an idiot. Yea, it failed the first time, so surely, just flipping it on and off will work. As I lower my hand, I roll my eyes at my own stupidity. “OK, that was stupid.” I say leaning against the door frame. 

I shrug it off, running some water in the sink, at least wetting my face. Then the power comes back on. Nice thing about our school, the solar panels installed, at great expense, due to the generous donation by the esteemed Burke Corporation, provide all the power we need, when the electrical grid fails. At least that is the sales pitch they kept promoting two years ago when the headmaster was arranging to receive the “generous donation” from Mr.. F. R. Burke, himself. I am sure it had nothing at all to do with accepting David Burke into the school. Oh, I am sure it was merely coincidence, that the school was being singled out for one of the most expensive projects, at just the time the CEO’s son was being ejected from his third boarding school.

According to the staff, the school is supposed to switch over to solar only, next year, once the massive battery storage unit passes inspection. From what I heard, which is probably only half true, the building was said to not have sufficient fire control stuff installed. I have no idea what all is involved with that, but what the heck. At least until then, it still works, yay. So I at least dunk my head and towel off my hair, to get it to lay flat, and pull it into the school authorized ponytail. We are only allowed a few hair styles, according to dress code, and this is the easiest and more practical of them.

After dressing, I grab my book bag and start to head to my home room. I notice though, all the doors are open, and nobody is in any of the classes. I stop to look in a few, just to be sure, and find no sign that anyone has been in them. Maybe there was some kind of assembly. I don’t recall there being one scheduled for today. This is odd. I figure, what’s the worst that can happen? Maybe I can sneak in and pretend I was there the whole time. Today might just be my lucky day. As I walk along, through the vacant hallways, I kind of get the creeps. It’s like those stories they tell, about when everyone is taken up into the sky, and those left behind are tortured or something. I never really paid attention to those stories, though now, I start to wonder if maybe I should have.

It takes me a while to get my locker open, and I put my book bag inside. There should at least be one of the staff walking the halls. They never seem to leave the halls completely empty. It really is a strange day. So I walk on, arriving to the double set of doors, leading to the auditorium. That is the first sign that something serious has happened. I stop, staring at the floor, as a puddle of blood seeps from under the first set of double doors. Someone has put a chair up, so it’s legs are holding the handles. The handles can not go down far enough to release the doors, so they are basically un-openable. Is that a word? Whoever did this is going to be in big trouble if they get caught. Though, I suppose, not as much as whatever caused all that blood.

I try to get close enough to the door to peek through the small glass windows. That is when I would have screamed, if a hand was not covering my mouth. Both the sudden grip of the hand over my mouth, as well as the sudden jump scare of a bloody disfigured face slamming into the glass make me nearly wet myself. Then I hear noise. Lots of noise. Screams and wailing from inside the auditorium. The hand over my mouth is joined by one grabbing me by my arm, and I am yanked to the side.

I recognize Kale, as he pushes me against the wall, making the hush sound in my ear. “Shh... don’t make a noise. One of them is trapped in there, the rest are still trapped in the auditorium. If you keep agitating him, the rest will break through the doors.” he whispers to me. I nod, shaking like a leaf. I have a million questions, but he keeps his hand over my mouth. “Come with me, I will take you to where the rest of us are hiding.” he says pulling me along with him.

Behind him I can see Tammy. She is holding a baseball bat, and looking very scared as well. We quietly make our way to the security office. Inside I can see four other students. They are all fixated on the security monitors. We go in the office, and Kale closes the door, slowly but firmly, locking it. Then he turns to me. “Did you see anyone else?” he asks. I shake my head no. “Are you sure?” he asks. I nod. Tammy puts her bat down and sits on a table. The table holds a couple rows of the security radios, sitting in their chargers.

“Do you know what happened?” One of the other students asks, his name is James, he is one of the other kids about my age. We are both lower class man, I am 14, he is 15. We have had a couple classes together, Science, and Geography, I think. As far as I know, he is very smart, much smarter than me. I shake my head no, still in a daze. Just a bit ago, I was in my room, oversleeping, and worrying about being late, now I am wondering what the heck is going on, and if people are hurt. I saw blood...

“Well, about an hour ago, one of the staff came in from town, they were so freaked out, they were screaming to get everyone in the auditorium. The staff was rounding up everyone, but they missed a few of us. Then about fifteen minutes later, we started to hear screaming, a lot of screaming, and then it got quiet.” Tammy tells me. I nod, but did not need to, she keeps going. “After that, we saw the blood all over the place, through the windows. That is when one of them turned and saw us, me and Kale, and he came after us, but we trapped him between the inner and outer doors to the auditorium. That was who you saw. I think that was Mr. Speevey, from 9th History.” I nod again, having no idea, because I am not in 9th. “Kale jammed the door handles with the chair, just in case they figure out how to open the doors. We jammed the others too. The Auditorium is sealed off, but we are pretty sure everyone else is either dead, or like Mr. Speevey.”

I look at the monitor that looks into the auditorium. There looks to be a lot of students just laying down, and only a few of the staff standing oddly, or wandering around rather oddly. They appear to be covered in blood, and the scene looks like something a horror writer would refuse to describe. I lean over and throw up in a trash can, then see, I wasn’t the first one to do that. “Oh damn it all, again?” I hear the voice of the last student I wanted to hear with us, the wonderful David Burke. I roll my eyes, looking over at James and the girl sitting by him, a really large girl that I know everyone has issues with. Her name is Diane, and she is the most infuriating girl in the world. If there is anything to be discussed, she will take the opposing side, and argue it, even if she is dead wrong, she will still argue it. Then if you say anything about it later, she will just say “Noooooooo...” and insist she said exactly the opposite of whatever she said. Everyone I know tells me all she does is lie. I bite my tongue, thinking how unfortunate it is, that we are stuck with two of the worst people in the school, when so many other kids, smart kids, nice kids, did not make it.

I join Tammy, sitting on the table, my legs no longer willing to hold me up. It just now registers, everyone else is dead. Really, dead, like horror story murdered. My brains having trouble processing this, it can’t be real. These things just do not happen in expensive boarding schools. While I sit down on the table, Kale is pacing back and forth, then looks over at David. “We need weapons. If any of those psychos get out of there, we need something to defend the girls.” he says. Tammy clears her throat. “Sorry, I mean, we need something for us all to defend each other and ourselves.” he says, looking at her with a raised eyebrow. She nods, accepting his clarification. I look around at everyone, wondering where the heck we will find weapons in a school.

“The only gun is the one the school security officer has, and he is in the auditorium.” David mentions. I put my hands up, like, well, that's no good. Kale grins. “Not so fast Runt.” he says looking at me. “We have archery, so we have bows and arrows.” he says looking pleased. “QED, we have weapons, but we need to get to them.” he says looking at a map of the school. The archery department is annexed to the stables, which would be across the atrium area, by the main entrance. The problem being, that would also put us in sight of the people in the auditorium, through the windows. While they are still sealed, and the security bars are still in place, that does not mean they can’t find a way to open them, or break through. “We are going to have to wait until it is dark out, so they can’t see us.” Kale decides. The rest of us kind of agree, since he seems to be the only one that is making plans. Tammy, writes that down on a notepad. I notice she has several things she has made note of, so this little discussion was going on for some time. They probably saw me headed towards the auditorium in the security monitors, and took time out long enough to fetch me.

“OK, so we have, gather tools from maintenance, start to disassemble the legs off desks, and we bolt the table tops over windows. We have, move as much food and medical stuff as we can into the Emerson tower dorm, so we can use the fifth story roof to look out for help. We have gather at least a couple telescopes from science, to see if we can see what is going on down in the L.A. area. We have, gather a few of the horses, and see if we can house them in Landon hall, for safety, in case more come from somewhere else and attack the stables. Now we have gather archery stuff. Did I miss anything?” Tammy reads off their list of ideas.

“Has anyone tried calling the police?” I ask, immediately regretting it. 

“Oh, wow, why didn’t we think of that?” Dave says smacking me in the back of the head. It hurts and brings tears to my eyes. I’m not a big girl, I’m actually on the petite side, and he is a large boy. His smack hurts far more than he probably even meant it to, and I have no doubt he meant it to hurt. He likes to hurt kids smaller than he is.

“We tried, the phones are over loaded.” Kale says, shrugging, then turning to scowl at Dave. “We tried 911 on a cell phone too.” he says.

“Is there anything on the internet?” I ask. Kale shakes his head. “Phones aren’t working. I just told you.”

“Our internet isn't from a phone line, its a fiber line. It should still be working.” I point out. Kale looks at Tammy. She nods, and he grins a bit. 

“OK, we need to get to the computer lab. Tammy put that on your list.” he says.

“On it.” she says already writing it down. 

“Told you the internet would still work.” James says quietly. Dave goes to smack him but stops when Kale smacks him in the back of the head first. 

“OK, so Dave and I will go see about the horses, we can both lift and load some bails of hay and oats. Tammy, take Gary and go to the archery department, load up on stuff. James, you and Ellie get to the computer lab, see what you can get from the internet. Diane, you stay here, just watch the monitors, warn us if you see anything that looks dangerous.” Kale says turning to her.

“Why do I have to stay here alone?” Diane starts to protest. Naturally, Miss. B wouldn’t miss the opportunity to argue. Kale glares at her, not willing to let her start her shit right now.

“OK, fine, you can go with Dave, and help him lift those hay bails, gather up some horses and tack.” He says as if he means it. I know he doesn’t, nobody would ever trust her to do something that important without making a mess of it.

“No, I’ll stay here. That's fine... THIS TIME!” she says as if she really has a choice. “But I don't see how I'm supposed to warn you if anything...” she starts to protest again before Kale shoves a radio in her face. He turns it on, and makes sure it’s set on channel 3. He hands James and Tammy a radio on channel 3 as well. 

“OK, lets get going. Remember, don’t make noise, and don’t antagonize those things. They really have torn up the auditorium. I bet they could really hurt us if they get a hold of us.” he warns. He didn’t need to warn me, I have no intention of even going near them.

We split up into our groups, and as James and I are walking down the hall, James looks at me kinda funny. I give him a strange look back. Since this whole scary day started, I haven’t had a chance to really stop and think. “OK, what?” I ask.

“I’m just impressed you volunteered to go to the lab with me.” he says grinning. Well, in truth, I was volunteered, but I don’t see what he means.

“Why wouldn’t I?” I ask shrugging.

“Well, you realize whats between us and the lab right?” he asks. I think about it a minute, then realize what he means.

“Oh, shit, how do we get past them?” I say as I realize that we have to go down the hall that leads right in front of the main doors of the auditorium. If they see us walking past, surely that will antagonize them, which is exactly what Kale told us not to do.

“Well, I’m going to show you a trick.” James says, pushing one of the larger recycle bins over to a wall. It scrapes a bit but I doubt the sound carried to the auditorium. He helps me up onto it, then climbs up with me. Then he pushes the ceiling panel back, of the drop ceiling. I see him climb up into the ceiling. A few second later, he reaches down to help me climb up after him. “Some of the guy... well, we sneak into the computer lab after hours, so we can play online games.” he says in a whisper. I grin. I always wondered how they got past the locked doors. It never occurred to me to just go over them.

James shows me how to walk on the wall sections, where the wall is wide enough to support our weight. We slowly, but fairly quietly make our way to the other side of the auditorium. We then hop down, which hurts. I’ve done gymnastics a lot, it’s sorta my thing, but landing on a hard surface like the concrete flooring, hurts from that height. It takes me a few minutes before my feet stop hurting enough to walk. After that, we are on our way. I have to hand it to him, not only is he kinda cute, but he’s clever. I start to like James, hoping he likes me back. Who would have thought it would take the zombie apocalypse, for me to find someone I like.


	2. Chapter 2

The time we spend crawling along the air conditioning ducts gives me time to think. Since I woke up, it had been so surreal, I guess reality was just now starting to sink in. Yes, this is a zombie thing. The proof is screaming and groaning down below us, even now. I have not really given it much thought, at least beyond the moment. Creeping along, I am now thinking about exactly what is going on. What if this is not just a local thing, what if it is bigger? I don't mean just, like California, what if it is even bigger than that? Then I start to think about my mom and dad. I have not seen them in years, so I don't think about them all that much, just sometimes on holidays. I start to feel bad that my first thoughts are not of them. What kind of daughter am I? But, the other kids, they are holding tough too. That comes with being in a boarding school. I guess we just learn to think about school as home, and our friends as our family.

By the time James pulled a ceiling panel aside, for us to get down, I am on the verge of tears. He has been awake longer, so chances are, he has already thought through that. How he is staying focused, I don't know. When he finally drops down, and helps me down, I can see he is deep in thought. I try to give him a fake smile, but that has never been my best skill. He gives me a hug, whispering "I know, it comes and goes." I nod, as he lets me go and turns to the bank of computers. They are in five long rows, side by side. The older flat screen monitors are all active, which means they are all powered up.

"Now, unlike most people, we don't get our internet through an ISP. We are linked directly to a hub. The internet was designed to stay up, even through a nuclear war, so provided the hub has power, which it should, we will have internet access. Hopefully, we can connect to other colleges or even government agencies, long enough to let them know we're alive, and get instructions on what to do." He explains to me. I watch as he sits down, boots up a computer, and goes to work. I have no idea what telnet is, or what he is doing, but he seems to know, so I walk around the room gathering up dry markers and whatever else looks like it may come in handy.

"Well, I have good news, and some not so good news." He says. "There was an automated message sent out on the FCC site. It has the URL addresses of a few places that might still be safe. I guess we are not the only ones to get as lucky as we are... if you consider us lucky, I guess." James says shrugging. "However, there are only three choices for us that are even remotely close."

I nod, walking over to a portable white board. "OK, I will write them down, what are they?" I say taking the cap off a red marker.

"Well, there are a few missile silos that are still unaffected. Nobody goes in or out of them very often, so whatever this is, it has not gotten to them yet. There is also a cruise ship off the coast, around Del Mar. They say they have no cases of illness, so if we can get to a boat, and sail out to it, we might be able to get somewhere safe." he says. I write them down, nodding. I like the idea of the cruise ship. It would have security, medical stuff, and food and water. It is also mobile, so we could sail around maybe, until we find somewhere safe.

"OK, that's two, what's our third option?" I ask.

"You might not like it." He says slowly.

"C'mon, quit screwing with me, where?" I say getting a bit impatient.

"Alcatraz island. Nobody lives there, it has fortifications, a pier, plenty of room to grow a garden, no way for those things to get to us, and once we are there, we could probably make it fairly livable." he says sounding less than sure.

"Umm, OK what's the down side to that?" I ask, wondering what about it I would not like.

"Well, we might have to make trips to the main land to get food, water, stuff to get electricity going, and a radio." he says bluntly.

"Or... we stay here, and hope for the best?" I ask. He shakes his head no. 

"No, I read a few reports. Those things, they are going around hunting people down. You know, like zombies do. So we can't fortify this school, its too big, and not built for that. We might make it safe enough for a little while, but we really need to get somewhere better." he says. I can't disagree. We will have to tell the rest, and see what Kale and Tammy come up with.

Kale looks back over his shoulder at Dave, trying to see what he is doing in the fading evening light. It will be dark in a few hours, and for whatever reason, Dave is screwing around, instead of working at getting the tack, feed, and horses ready. Giving up, he just works harder, faster. As soon as possible, Dave will need to be dealt with. Until then, he ties lead lines to seven horses, and starts to lead them back to the Emerson tower dorm. It is the oldest of the dorms, built out of the same stone as the school proper. Unlike the newer additions, it was built to be more sturdy. While all the buildings are up to code, being earthquake resistant, Emerson will provide some additional support, in case some of those things get loose and try to claw through the walls. The fact they have been trying, and failing, so far in the auditorium, is proof enough. 

He starts to pull the horses out, taking the long way around, past the hedgerow, in hopes of avoiding the visibility from the auditorium. It works for a bit, but then, where maintenance has trimmed the hedgerow, they are fully visible. The zombies in the auditorium renew their screams and thrashing about, busting out the windows and pounding at the security bars. While Kale speeds up, Dave just stands there giving them the finger as he laughs. In the back of Kale's mind, he is picturing the day those things get a hold of Dave. He grins, hoping to be there to see that.

Emerson hall looms straight ahead, and he nearly runs, trying to get the horses inside the hall foyer, before any of those things escape. Dave eventually starts to follow, but whistles as he walks, agitating them even more. The idiot doesn't seem to appreciate just how precarious their situation is. It is everything Kale can do to keep from turning and beating Dave until he wakes up to the reality of the situation. The problem is, Dave might very well be able to take him, and right now, that would not help anyone.

Tammy looks back, over at the auditorium, as Gary searches for a rock large enough to smash the lock holding the door shut, to the archery department supply shed. After a few minutes, he comes back, holding one of the Welcome signs. She looks at it, then at him. "Sorry, I didn't think we were really welcoming anyone here anymore." he says with a grin. Tammy, nods, watching as he uses it to pry the lock off the wall. With a groan and a pop, it comes off, and Gary takes a few quick steps back, getting his balance. "Whoa, that was harder than I imagined it would be." He says walking back to the door. Tammy pushes it open, turning on a light. Inside are rows of the fairly nice, but by no means high quality bows, they give students to learn archery. She passes them, looking for the stuff the archery team uses. "Forget those, they are not important. We want the good stuff." she says as Gary starts to grab one. 

She opens the door to the back of the shed, to where the team keeps their equipment. "Here, take these, the ones with the little things on the strings." she says handing him one.

"I know what cat whiskers are." Gary says holding the bow properly. "I had archer already. I actually am pretty good at this." he says looking over at the better arrows. Tammy nods, noticing that he looked over to where the instructor was shaping them for a tournament. She nods, realizing, he really does know his stuff. That is good. They will need a couple really good shots, if they get into trouble. "I just don't know if I can do it." he says sadly.

"Do what?" she asks, filling three team bags with as many arrows as they can hold.

"You know, shoot one of our friends. I mean, we know those people. They are our teachers, our friends, classmates, roommates. I don't know if I can shoot them." he says. "I mean, that shit's real. Like, murder."

"If you don't and they get their hands on you, it WILL be murder." Tammy says grimly. "Look, I've been back and forth on this all damn day. I don't particularly like most of them, never have. I never disliked them enough to think about shooting them, but now, things have changed. It's us or them, and I want to get back to my grandma, make sure she's OK."

"I understand. I was thinking about that too. I wonder how everyone back home is. Probably doing better than us. I mean, surely the police and military have things under control in other places."

"I don't know. I hope James and Ellie have some luck finding news about this. I saw some smoke from down in the LA valley area. It seemed like things were not going too well down there."

"Well, it doesn't seem to take too much to make that area a mess." Gary says as they both finish grabbing up gear. "I got a couple extra bows, and about thirty extra draw strings." he tells her.

"OK, we're done, lets get to Emerson hall." Tammy says as they turn out the light and leave, closing the door behind them.

It is late when everyone gathers in Emerson hall. I sit with Tammy, going over the locations, while James and Gary make trips back and forth to the cafeteria, bringing back some food and drinks. Kale and Dave have nailed up some boards over the windows, with stuff found in the maintenance shed outside. While I am dubious of their work, Kale insists it will at least keep light from getting out too much. The bars over the windows will keep out anything bad, at least until morning, when we can figure out what we are going to do, and where we are going to go. Diane just sits by herself, eating some tasty cakes and bitching about how we have to stay in the boys dorm. For the life of me, I don't know why we have to keep her with us. I mean, she clearly doesn't want to stay with us, but Kale insists we all stay together. If it were up to me, I would tell her and Dave to go off together and do whatever it is people like them do.

When Gary and James finally return with the last of the snacks, we lock the doors to the foyer, and head up into the tower. Tammy brought some of the spotter scopes from the archery team's gear, and her and Kale intend to use them to try to see what is going on down in the LA valley area. James, Gary, and I gather up some bedding and decide to all sleep in the same room. Somehow, it seems like the three of us are kind of our own little thing. Our small group seems to have split, to a degree, into Tammy and Kale, Dave and Diane, and the three of us.

In the morning, if it looks good, Kale has decided, our best bet would be to get to the harbor at Del Mar, and try to get something to sail out to that cruise ship. We have no idea if it is still there, but if not, we can then try to make our way to the prison island. I am less enthusiastic about that plan. I am not in charge, though, so I suppose tomorrow, we will see what we are going to do.


	3. Chapter 3

Morning comes all too soon. We all awoke to the sound of something smashing into the doors to the foyer. I say all of us, because guess who was supposed to be taking their turn on watch. If you said Miss. B, you are right. The look she gets from Kale sums up how we all feel about the lazy bi....

During the night, David had left the dorm to go screw with the zombies. It got them riled up enough, they started breaking through the doorways. The idiot didn't bother to tell us until now. With nothing else to do, we all gather upstairs and look out the windows. Kale and Tammy are the first to draw bows and start to fire down into them. From a distance I can hear the horses we left behind screaming in terror, as the zombies chase them down and kill them. That at least draws most of them off of us, but the screaming horses in the foyer keep the attention of many. With nothing else to do, except fight, James, Gary and I also draw bows and start to fire down into our former classmates and teachers. I won't insult you by telling you this was easy to do. It is damn hard to intentionally kill someone you know... err, knew. Even if they are a zombie, there is something about it that just hurts inside.

Though we fire pretty steadily, there are simply too many of them and we realize, we have to make a break for it. This is when we realize a significant flaw in our plan. That flaw is Miss. B. She is far too heavy to get up onto the horses, they could not handle her weight for long, and it would probably end up hurting the horse. Aside from that, she doesn't bother to mention she can't ride a horse, until now. I look at Tammy with a "What the hell?" look and she nods. I mean, if you were unable to ride, and the entire plan revolved around us all riding out, don't you think you might mention that before? Well, we can't stay here just for her, they will be through the doors soon, and we have nowhere to hide, and the horses will be slaughtered. Once that happens, we are dead, since there is nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide for miles. 

We are debating what to do when David turns and stabs Kale in the gut. We all are in shock, this was real, it happened. Nobody is sure what to do. He grabs me by my arm and starts to pull me towards the window nearest us, but James is having none of that and smashes David over the head with a cricket bat. That sets off the strangest series of events I have ever seen. Diane immediately jumps up and tries to attack James, but Tammy trips her and she falls down the stairs. Kale lays bleeding on the floor, gasping for breath, but it looks pretty bad. We decide its time to get out of here fast. Gary and James start to saddle up all the horses, loading the gear on them as fast as possible. We had put most of the stuff in pillow cases, tied together with straps made from bed sheets, so that really was not that much of a project.

Tammy tells us to get ready, and she gets on her horse. We follow her lead and she kicks the doors open, charging her horse through the mob of zombies outside. We follow, trampling them as we go, and not looking back. The last I hear from the dorm is Miss. B screaming, as they go up into the dorm. We ride out, down the road, covering as much ground as we can, but we end up stopping not more than a few hundred meters, as Kale falls off his horse and lays very very still. None of us are doctors, but we don't have to be, to see he has died. No more blood squirts, which means no heart beat pumping blood. He doesn't gasp for air, so no breath. Even as we sit there, wondering what to do, we can hear the howls of the zombies, as they pursue us. Tammy motions for us to just grab the reins of his horse, we have to keep going. We all wish we can bury him, or something, but if we don't keep running, we will end up joining him.

It is several hours later, after we have covered a few miles, in the steep and winding hills, that Tammy finally lets us stop for more than a few minutes. Other than taking time to get off to walk the horses for a while, we have rode fairly steadily. None of us have dared to really talk much, I think we all are in shock. We actually saw David murder Kale. It was nothing like on TV. Finally she looks us over and tells us to sit down. We drop the reins of our horses, since they are English trained, that tells them to not move from where they are.

"OK, that was about as messed up as it gets. Now, we can be pretty certain Miss. B and David got what they deserved, but just in case, I've been thinking. Those things don't move slow and shambly like in the movies, they seem pretty spritely and capable. So, do we really want to go down into the valley and chance it with possibly millions of them?" We kinda look at each other, none of us sure what to do. "I didn't think so. So I have an idea, but I think we all should have a say in it." she says taking a drink from one of the water bottles. It seems like a good idea, so I do too, and then James and Gary do too. Tammy has become the new leader, and none of us are willing, or capable, of contesting that.

"So what do we do? Where do we go?" James asks. If anything, I think James is second in charge. Gary doesn't seem interested in leading, and me, well, I have no business leading anyone. If I were ever to lead anyone, it would only be because they happened to be going wherever I was going. As Tammy gets ready to tell us, Gary and I pour some water into my riding helmet, and pass it from horse to horse, so they can at least drink a bit. Gary is gentle with them, and they react well to him. I think they know I am a bit afraid of them, because they seem to not respond so well to me.

"We should head East, towards the border. There are smaller towns, some no more than a hundred to less. Chances are, there will be fewer of those things there, and we might be able to find a place capable of keeping them out." Tammy says pointing towards the East. "We could follow I10 East, I think." she says pointing to the map we have of California.

"What about the helicopters?" James asks pointing to where some helicopters seem to be coming and going far to the South of us.

"I noticed them, but they might be military, so that means soldiers. They likely are going to where the fighting is, and that would be no place for us. I don't think four kids with bows are going to survive in a place where helicopter loads of soldiers are needed." she points out. I nod, though nobody asks my opinion. It just seems completely logical. If dozens or more trained soldiers can't handle the unknown number of zombies, then the four of us stand no chance at all. "But they seem to be heading towards Arizona, so maybe there is something there we can go to."

"Most likely the Reservations. I mean, if this zombie thing is spread by contact, which according to what we think we know, it might be, then the Reservations might be OK. After all, not many people ever come and go from them." James says thinking out loud.

"The casinos. If they have a casino, they have a lot of people coming and going." Gary points out. That is a good point, one I had not thought of myself.

"True, but not all Tribes have a casino, so it is entirely likely that there may be a safe place." Tammy says. That is comforting. We might yet find a safe place.

"OK, but how the heck do we find one?" Gary asks. Tammy shrugs, not knowing. James raises his hands, in the common, "I dunno" gesture that he seems to do so often. I also shrug.

"Well then, I suppose we will just have to figure that out as we go." Tammy decides. That seems fair. At least we all know where we stand. We have some kind of a plan, but nobody is sure how exactly to do it.

We saddle back up and turn East, making our way down the Eastern side of the hills that surround LA. It will be a long ride past San Bernardino, through the national park. We all agree that whatever is going on down in the valley, chances are, whatever those things are now, zombies, monsters, infected... they likely have not had time to get as far out of the valley as we plan to ride. With luck, we should only stumble upon a few here and there, others like ourselves, that maybe were not so lucky as to have horses to out run the faster zombies. That being the case, we still keep our bows ready, laying across our saddles, when possible. Tammy and James are experienced enough riders, they only need one hand to guide their horses, so they hold their bows in the other.

We ride and walk for a few days. It seems like forever, but is really only four. Five if you count the day we fled the school. We stop at any water source we find and let the horses drink, and splash some on ourselves. The last one, we all took turns getting in and at least cooling off in the water. It is getting warmer, and we have made some good progress, but there is still far to go. The going is slow, our progress is hampered by the terrain. We are stopped watering our horses, when we see a car wreck up ahead on one of the park roads. Tammy and James decide to investigate it, but Tammy has Gary and I stay on horseback, keeping the other horses ready for them. Tammy has us stop, back about fifty meters from it, and her and James dismount and sneak over to it, arrows nocked and ready. Gary and I have our bows ready, but not like that, we have to stay mounted, holding the reins of the other horses. If this goes pear shaped, we will ride in and let them get mounted for a fast escape.

They get within a few meters of the wreck, it turns out there are five cars involved. We saw two, but the other three were off the embankment out of view. Gary and I circle around the wreck, keeping the horses ready, but staying so we can keep them in sight. Tammy has James stop short, and she crouches down, sneaking into the crash site. As she gets close, she raises her bow, firing after some time aiming. We hear a howl briefly, as one of those things collapses. Another one comes from behind some trees, unsure where to go, but hearing the noise. It finally spots Gary and I, and seems confused at first. I guess we don't look like a food source at first. James fires his bow and it goes down, the arrow stuck through its head. They then go deeper into the crash site, finally motioning for us to come in, slowly.

I follow Gary, and we ride slowly, quietly, into the crash site. It is gruesome. The bodies of the dead are torn apart, smeared all over the place. None of us are sure how this happened, we likely will never puzzle that out, but it looks very grotesque. I take a few minutes to throw up behind a tree. This is not something I have ever been exposed to, and it just hits me harder than the rest I guess. By the time I return, Tammy and James have started searching the cars. They pile camping gear into the middle of the site, delighted that we will finally have something to camp in. Until now, we had just slept on the ground, in the open, under the blankets we took with us. James also shows us, he found a rifle and a pistol. Tammy elects to take the pistol, keeping the extra clips, or magazines, or whatever they are called. I have never been too keen on that stuff, never even seen a gun up close until now. That sort of thing just does not happen in school. The most I ever saw of one was the handle part of the school's security officer. Even then, it was mostly covered, they didn't like for the students to be exposed to that stuff. James takes the rifle, and also some of the extra ammunition things. We feel better now, that at least we have a couple guns, even if none of us have ever shot one. 

We spend some time securing the camping gear to the extra horse, and then move on. Not far from us, near the campus of San Bernardino University, we can still hear some shooting. Maybe its explosions, none of us are that sure. There are a lot of fires burning, and the air is heavy with smoke the closer to the city we go, so we stay well away. It makes sense, really. If this thing happened like in the movies, which up till now is all we have to guess by, then there would be a lot of car wrecks, and houses going up as electronics maybe spark or whatever. I have no idea, but I know that at night, there is a glow from the valley, and even from San Bernardino. I have no idea what could survive in that hellish environment, but whatever it is, would be tough enough to kill us for sure.

We walk the horses for another day, trying to keep them as fresh as possible. The terrain is broken, with lots of rocky areas. We end up having to go well out of our way, to get up some areas, because they are just too hard to climb on foot. None of us are in the best of shape, we all realize we are a bit soft, from the cushy life in our dorms. Gary takes it fairly well, but I have a lot of trouble. Yes, I'm a gymnast, and you might think that would make me keenly in shape, but that is a whole different kind of exertion. Admittedly, I can keep up with the rest, despite being quite a bit smaller than them, but I am no less tired when we do take our breaks. It is on the seventh day, we all realize we have not seen anymore helicopters. I guess the battle is over, and we lost. That scares me a lot. If the Army can't stop these things, then I don't know what can. I expected to see the Army drop bombs, possibly the nukes, to kill off the possibly millions of those things. I guess they just didn't have the chance or something. It is hard to really feel any hope at all if the entire Army lost.

The morning of the eighth day, we arrive at the highway that leads to Arizona. If we thought it was bad before, we all get a rude awakening. It is just mile after mile of cars. Mixed among them are countless zombies, many of them attacking each other. Tammy and James find that to be particularly interesting. If they are willing to kill each other, then maybe if we do find a safe place, we can just wait them out. By now, we all are ragged. None of us have eaten well. We are drinking water we have bottled from the last lake we passed, and it doesn't look all that good. We filtered it with cloth, but its still rather dubious. Cloudy water, however, is better than no water. Still, we know we have even farther to go, and it will only get hotter.

We follow the highway for the better part of the day, stopping from time to time to try to loot in areas that do not seem to have zombies. From time to time Tammy or James will return with some drinks, or some kind of food, like cereal or canned stuff. Once James came back with a really ugly thick phone, but the lines were all giving us the same busy signal. Instead of wasting the battery, he turns it off and takes the battery out, putting them both in a plastic sandwich bag to keep them safe. Tammy also comes back with a hand held radio, the kind you crank up to use. We get nothing but the Emergency Alert Broadcast. She puts it away too, since there is no use is listening to that over and over. Most of the time we walk the horses, about seventy meters off the road side, where the zombies don't seem to care to go. They seem to prefer to stay by the cars, scavenging for dead people to feast upon. 

It is the next day we find ourselves in the biggest jam we have faced yet. As we are watering the horses at what we think was a golf course, we hear the scream of some of them. I turn, seeing at least a dozen coming at me. Tammy and Gary were holding the horse, as James and I were refilling the water bottles. We realize we are too far from them to get mounted in time, so we pull our bows off our shoulders, nocking arrows and firing as they close in on us. We kill a few, but there are too many, and we have to run.

Tammy and Gary ride off, telling us to circle around toward the club house. Neither James nor I can see that from ground level, but we can't tell her that because they have already rode off. I fire the last of my arrows and turn to see James down to four left. He sees I am out and we both run to the side, putting the water between us and them. That buys us a little time. As the zombies seems to stumble a bit, trying to decide if they can go through the water, or around, we run back towards the edge of the course, finally jumping up and climbing over the fence. He stops for a second, grabbing a handful of stones, and then pulls his shirt off, wrapping it around the stones, then tossing it off to the left. He grabs my hand and we run to the right. As we run, we hear the zombies scale the wall just where we did, following our scent. They go towards the strongest scent, which is the shirt near them. Two come our way and he turns and fires his bow, missing once, but killing them with the last three shots.

We run farther, then climb up on top of the wall, realizing we went the wrong way. We should have gone the other way and thrown the shirt this direction. He says a few choice words to himself, but I don't blame him. neither of us knew what direction to go. Still, we are now facing a neighborhood of houses, and that scares us both. We climb over a few backyard fences, hearing the moans of zombies in the houses, as well as the streets beyond. There are not too many, but enough that we are unlikely to make it far, two kids without any weapons. We finally get to a house that appears to be empty, so we risk getting close to the glass back door. We have to tug at it a few times before it finally opens. Once inside, he pulls his walkie talkie out, from back at school, and turns it on. Immediately we hear Tammy calling for us. "Tammy, its OK, we are safe for the moment. We ran the wrong way and are in a house outside the wall. Sorry I didn't call you sooner, we were trying to be quiet." he says in a whisper. 

"OK, well we are OK too, for now. We rode up inside a parking garage, the zombies didn't follow. No food up here for them." she says sounding a bit smug. I can't help but admire the quick thinking. It makes sense, there would be nothing to draw them up into a parking garage, much less keep them hanging about in one. James goes out back and looks around, then comes back inside. 

"OK, yea, I can see the garage from here. We will try to make our way there, might take some time. If you hear us yelling, then be ready to ride, and we will try to get mounted as fast as we can and catch you up." he says in his adorable accent.

"OK, we will wait here." Tammy says finally, then we turn the radio off and go back outside. From farther away we hear the howls of the zombies we ditched, calling for something to eat.

James leads me along, climbing over fences, from yard to yard. We make it quite a ways before he peeks over a back wall and decides we are reasonably close. We both scale the back wall, dropping down onto the golf course side again. We start to run straight toward the parking garage. We don't look behind us, out of fear of what we might see, but we hear them crying out. They see us, but are far enough away, we might make it. From the parking garage, we see Tammy and Gary firing their bows, behind us we hear the occasional scream. Gary shoulders his bow, waving his arm to encourage us to run faster. James leans forward more, lowering his head in an all out sprint. I do the same, falling a bit behind, but he slows to always keep me near. As we round the corner, we hear Tammy firing her pistol at the ones close enough to be dangerous. We mount our horses, barely riding out as a hoard of them come racing towards us.

We have no time to lose, and we race across the greens, towards the farther highway. We have to keep to open ground, since we don't know the neighborhoods, and can easily run ourselves into a dead end. The term dead end takes on a new meaning in my mind now. As we ride away from the golf course, we can see them falling behind. We are safe, again, for now.


	4. Chapter 4

Our ride is brief. It is warm out, very warm. The horses are tired, and we are all feeling pretty drug out. Tammy halts us once we are far enough away from the mob, that they can't possibly see us. We stop under an overpass, appreciating the shade. Ahead on the left is a hotel of some kind. Then another after, then another. On the right is a sign saying something about Coachella. I always wanted to go to a festival there. I point it out to Tammy. "Hey look, Coachella."

"Congratulations hippy, you made it." she jokes laughing. We all break out laughing. It is the first time since this all started. None of us laugh much anymore. It only lasts a few minutes, but it feels good. The wind blows again, it feels nice. The stench of death isn't hanging over us here. That is one of the things I have started to get used to. The smell of death is everywhere. Bodies lay in the places they were killed. Some have been horribly mutilated, partially eaten. Many look as if they were eaten right to the bone. Whatever the condition, bodies lay strewn everywhere. I also used to be squeamish of blood, but no longer. It seems like blood is everywhere. Blood, flies, and that smell, its just part of life now.

"That sign says there is a reservation nearby." Gary says pointing to a small brown colored sign. "It looks like they have a casino, so I'm guessing..."

"That we would be advised to just pass it by." James finishes his sentence for him. "According to my Google Map, we should keep following this road. It should get us out of the city, and maybe the smaller communities won't be so bad." James says studying his iPad. We all look over at him questioningly.

"How the hell do you have internet out here?" Tammy asks. 

"The golf course back there..." he says pointing to where we came from, "...had free wifi. As long as places have power, if they had DSL, they should still be giving a signal. I've been updating our web site on our progress every time we pass a Starbucks or somewhere with free wifi." he says. We all look at each other, feeling amazingly stupid. Of course, leave it to the geeks to save us all. Isn't that how it goes? The beginning of every disaster movie starts with people not listening to scientists, and ends with people finally listening to a nerd. Being one of the nerd community, I approve.

"We have a web site?" Gary asks confused.

"We have free wifi?" Tammy asks.

"We passed a Starbucks?" I ask. I'm sorry, but right now I would kill for a mocha frapp. I get a rather dirty look from everyone, except James, who seems to sympathize with me. Chances are, less so for the mocha frapp, and more for the public wifi.

"To answer you all, yes, I set up a web site for us, so that anyone that might be searching for survivors would find us. I even set up a Twitter account. As for free wifi, of course we do. I told you, DSL and cable connections do not depend upon the regular phone service like normal telephones do. Speaking of, they should be working again by now. It has been long enough that all the calls that jammed the lines have been automatically disconnected. So, yea, we should be able to use the phones. I'm also trying to find the nearest NSS center." he says like any of us are smart enough to know what he is talking about.

"Wait, first, phones reset automatically? Second, whats an NSS?" Tammy asks.

"Bloody hell, your country and you don't even know about your own Emergency Services?" James says shaking his head. "The National Shelter System. It was set up specifically for situations where society is falling apart. It was started by your Red Cross and FEMA. I figured, there may be some stocks of first aid and other supplies where they would be ready to set up a camp should they be needed." I just figured, we can't take any chances. We will need medical supplies at some point, so we should start looking for them."

"How long do you think the power will last?" I ask.

"Well, California gets a lot of its power from a nuclear plant in Arizona, so we might assume, so long as it remains online, we will have power." James shrugs, having no way to know how long that might be.

"Well, it's good to know you've thought ahead." Tammy says honestly as shocked as we are.

"As if you all have never laid awake at night imagining all the things you would do when the world ends?" James laughs. We don't. I don't think any of us ever have.

"That seems kinda science fiction to me." Gary says sipping some water.

"Dude, you're in the zombie apocalypse." I point out. "How scifi is that?"

"Yea, good point." Gary says grinning. He tugs my ponytail, which used to be very light blond, but having missed so many baths, is now looking kinda greasy and dirty. Normally this would be reason for me to freak out, but considering how we all smell right now, it really doesn't bother me like you might think.

"We need to make some decisions then. Firstly, do we follow this highway, or do we try looking for the railroad tracks that run from state to state?" Tammy asks.

"If we take the railroad tracks, I get to be Gordie." James says.

"I'll take Teddy." I say laughing. Nobody else gets it, they just look at us like we are freaks. "Oh, c'mon, Stand By Me. You know, the movie?" Tammy shakes her head no, and Gary grins a bit.

"Well, we could take the tracks, but that has some advantages and disadvantages to consider." James says. "First, yes, it will get us the hell away from all these things, likely, and will be a more or less easier course, since trains don't go up and down steep grades like automobiles do."

"How come?" Gary asks.

"They don't have tyres, so they don't get the traction on the metal rails. QED, if we go by rail, the travel will be easier, smoother. However, there will be no resources at all along the way. If we run out of anything, food, water, horses, we will be on foot in the middle of nowhere." James points out. "Normally, the rails are the best options, there are never car wrecks, nearly never train wrecks, and nothing to draw the zombies to them."

"But we are crossing the desert." Tammy points out. "So, not so good, because we will need to find water stops along the way."

"Exactly. So we may well stick to following this motorway, hoping it brings us to the occasional supply point. However, I have been thinking about this. We might want to think of rigging up some kind of Travois."

"Uhhh, a what?" Gary asks raising an eyebrow.

"Its what Native Americans would drag behind dogs or horses, to carry their gear." I say answering that. Everyone looks at me funny. "What? I did a paper of Native tribes and customs."

"I remember. I was in your class. Great work, I learned a lot from it." James says giving me a high five. "So yes, we might want to rig one up to the extra horse and stock up on bottled water. I think if you and Tammy can start putting together something," he says to Gary and Tammy "...then Ellie and I can try looting the next large hotel."

"Wait, why you two?" Tammy asks unsure about this plan.

"Well, chances are, the wood or metal or whatever you find, will be a bit on the robust side, which means it will be heavy. Frankly, you and Gary are the stronger of us. So it makes sense that you two would be the ones to drag the pieces here, and start lashing them together however best you can. Since Ellie and I worked out pretty good together, last time, we might be good to get into the food services part of a hotel. They always stock large amounts of food and water bottles as well as other things, for guests. We can gather as much as we can carry back, and we will maybe make a few trips, but fill the rig up with as much as we dare. The horse is already carrying quite a load, so we can't add too much."

Tammy nods, seeing the logic of it, and Gary seems relieved to not be going into a possible zombie hotel. As they walk off to go look for stuff to make the Travois out of, James and I sneak along the highway towards the Holiday Inn.

The walk to the Holiday Inn goes quietly. James has little to say, thinking about whatever plans he has instead. I pull my hair back out of my eyes, wishing I had cut my bangs off. The quiver taps lightly on my right leg as we walk. Unlike in silly old Western movies, quivers do not go over our backs, they are more efficient hanging from our belts. We both filled our quivers this time, carrying twenty five arrows each. I have one nocked, my finger holding it on the grip. The building is huge. My guess would be, it is at least as large as the main building of our school. James and I both stop across the street from it, behind some bushes. We can see movement behind the windows and doors. There is the ever present sign of blood all over the place outside. We go back down the berm behind rather useless fence, and make our way to a billboard sign. James crawls up onto it, using a spotting scope, from our archery teams supplies, to get an idea what is going on inside. He looks down at me, shaking his head.

"I figure twenty, maybe more inside. The front doors are busted out, several windows as well. Getting in there will be dangerous. I had hoped they had moved on by now." he says looking a bit glum.

"What if they were chasing something?" I ask thinking up a plan.

"That would depend entirely upon what they are chasing." he says as he climbs down. "If it is Ellie shaped, then no, that is a very bad plan." he hops down the last couple feet and gets his bow back from me.

"I was thinking something else, I'm not that brave. They seem to be attracted to noise. So what if he give them something noisy to run after?" I ask pointing to a car.

"Well, do you know how to drive?" he asks. I can see why he might assume I intend to drive.

"No, just what I've done in Gran Tourismo. Trust me, that would not get us far." I say sneaking over to an old Honda. "I wasn't talking about driving. I meant something louder, that will surely draw them out."

"Well, not too loud, we don't want to draw others from the other hotels here. This is enough zombies as is."

"Yea, trust me on this." I say aiming towards one of the broken windows. I wait until one of them is in the window, then fire, hitting it in the shoulder. It squeals in rage, thrashing. He looks at the front doors through the spotter scope as the zombies inside seem to all surge towards the room with the wounded zombie. I fire again and another one screams. Then something remarkable happens. The zombies start to attack the wounded, tearing them apart and eating them. They must be starving after so many days of no humans to eat. "They eat their wounded." we both say at the same time.

While the zombies are having a feeding frenzy, we both stay low, running across the street to the main entry, then looking for the food services department. I find it, pointing to it. James nods, but tells me to go and start grabbing cases of water, and stack them by the window. He runs off then, leaving me. I want to say something, but we are already beyond whisper range. Neither of us are willing to risk speaking louder. I have no choice, so I head to the food services department, and slip inside.

The food preparation area is larger than what you would call a kitchen. It is an absolute disaster. What food was easily available is scattered all over, where they feasted upon it, leaving only the remains of the packages. In some cases, they too were partially eaten. I sneak over to where I see some cases of water bottles stacked, then lift one and carry it to the window. As I turn around I feel a hand grab my shoulder, yanking me. I squeak, which is pretty normal for me, and grab onto an arrow, thinking of trying to load my bow. It is far too late for that, as the hideous figure tries to pull me towards it. I see it only has one arm, the other seems to have been ripped off. I suppose that is why it was in this room, not among the others. I feel it pulling me closer, its mouth snapping open and shut over and over. I am losing my grip on the window sill, and it yanks hard, finally breaking my grip. I fly towards it, but I raise my foot, trying to stop it from pulling my face up to its gnashing teeth.

From outside, I hear what must be a golf cart roll up. If he had just come with me, but it is too late for what if. I kick at its face with my other foot, but it has no effect, other than to enrage it more. Thankfully, it is gnashing its teeth so much, it can't call out to the others. I feel my knee give, its stronger than my legs, and as I feel it pull me in for the final bite, I thrust the arrow into its eye. I jam it in hard, twisting and turning it. The hand lets go of me, and I fall back onto my shoulders and neck, which knocks the wind out of me. The zombie now howls in rage. The moments after that seem like time slows down to a crawl. I remember the window breaking, and the crack of James' rifle. The zombie flies back, it's head splattered all over. Then I feel James grabbing me by the shoulders, helping me to my feet. He pushes me to the window, pausing only to grab two cases of bottled water. As I climb out, he tosses the cases into the back of the golf cart like truck, and adds the one I already put by the door.

By now, the others are reacting, having heard the gunshot. Chances are, any outside may also have heard, so he climbs back out, pushing me back into the seat, because I was stupidly trying to get out, to ready my bow. Instead he jams on the gas and the golf cart speeds off, down the road, away from the zombies that are now arriving in the food services area, and no doubt, trying to figure out what to do, unless they are eating the one he killed. I don't know, and frankly don't care.

James drives along the road, putting as much distance between us and them as he can. Once we get to an intersection, he stops and tells me to take my hoodie off. I do, since it is rather torn, and bloodied. He checks me for bites or scratches, and tells me I am damn lucky. I nod, crying. Then he curses himself for leaving me alone. We use a few bottles of water to wash me off, then I realize, had we looked, there is a gas station right here. Of course, from below the overpass, we could not see it, but there it is. In the parking lot are three large RV's. We see only five zombies ambling about in the store, so we decide not to make noise, and to sneak over to the RV's.

They are all empty, so we sneak inside and gather up a nice map, some candy bars, a few cans of soda, and I discover one of the former inhabitants of this thing was a girl not much larger than me. I sort through some of the bags she had, finding essentially nothing but pink, and more pink. I pull out a hoodie, then stuff some essentials into a smaller backpack, and we sneak back to the cart, zooming down the road to the bottom of the overpass, where Tammy and Gary are waiting. They see the golf cart and the water cases, then the fact I'm no longer wearing my uniform hoodie, but in fact some Hello Kitty hoodie, and look worried. It takes some times before they are satisfied I am not going to turn into a zombies, but eventually, we get a look at the crazy rig they put together.

It looks sturdy, though I wonder how long it will last, dragging along behind the horse. Still, we will be lightening it as we go, as we drink up the water. James recommends we keep the empty water bottles, since we can refill them as well. We all agree, and so we set out, down the road, into the desert. In time we pass the Love's Truck Stop, then later what looks to be a church, then we leave civilization behind us, as we start our travel across the desert. From here, what we have is what we have, and if we run out of something, there will be few chances to replace it. We all dismount as soon as we are more or less out of sight of anything we would call civilization. As we walk along, leading our horses, we all seem lost in thought. None of us really know where we are headed, or what we expect to find there, but we know that California seems to belong to the zombies. Whatever we find next, we will have to depend upon each other and our own wits, to survive.


	5. Chapter 5

It seems like we walk forever. In truth, it is only four days, but we make slow progress. We are all tired by the time we spot another sign of civilization. About two days ago, we passed a rest stop. There was nothing there, but it gave us a chance to refill the water bottles, and let the horses drink and rest. According to the map we are following, we are a little less than half way to wherever we are going. Tammy figures some little town named Blythe probably won't have too many of the infected still around. From what we can tell, they are starving. The ones we have seen, here and there along the highway, all look as if they have been torn apart by others. We have a theory that they will go after regular people, like us, first. Animals and such as well, given the chance. Failing that, they will turn on each other, fighting to separate the weakest of them, then turning on them and eating them. In a way, as gruesome as that is, it is partly good news. That means, in theory, we can wait them out, if we can find enough supplies and a safe place to hide. The bad news is, that means, the strongest of them will be the last to go. Maybe, though, by then, they will be injured and weakened enough, that we can kill them off. So far, there is no working theory for what happened, or how.

We finally stop a little ways outside what I swear, looks like some kind of scene out of World War Two. Through the spotter scopes, we see tanks. Yea, actual tanks, like with tracks, big guns, the whole thing. They appear to be stuck there, though we have no idea why, it must be some kind of display. Gary sees several zombies milling about, maybe two dozen in all. James thinks we might be able to take them out, possibly securing this place for a little while. We out ran a hoard that we think was chasing after some wildlife, about a mile back. They were headed this way, so we can't stay long.

Beyond the building with the tanks around it, there appears to be some sort of housing area. That is where the majority of the zombies seem to be. farther on, is an airport. Tammy and Gary close in, on foot. James and I keep the horses in hand, circling to the North a bit, where we see even more tanks. We get up on top of a small hill, giving us a little better view, then we make contact with Tammy and Gary. By now, they are just outside a low fence, near the entry to the building with the tanks. "OK, we see five in your area, three between your building and the housing area, two in the field with the tanks." James says slowly.

"OK, we see the three to our left. We are going to take them out." Tammy says drawing her bow and leveling her aim. She is a really good archer, giving herself plenty of time to slow her breathing then releasing her arrow. We watch, through the spotting scopes, as it hits just below the zombies eyes, killing it before it hits the ground. Gary draws down on one, firing a bit early, hitting it in the chest, but it spins, falling down. Tammy nocks her second arrow and lets it go, killing the fallen zombie, then giving Gary a dirty look. The stakes are high right now. They can easily be over run and killed. We have noticed a few of the zombies are exceptionally fast, and they all appear to be quite strong. I can tell you that from personal experience.

She fires a last time, killing the third, and they wait a few moments, to see if any from the housing area notice. They don't seem to, so they both sneak over and drag the bodies over to some desert scrub, rolling them behind some sage brush. We know they eat their dead, so leaving them in the open, that is just inviting them to swarm that area in a feeding frenzy. That would make this mission suicide. I feel sorry for them, even from here, we can smell the rotting stench. It has to be horrible for them, but that smell has permeated the places where people have been rotting in the desert sun. The only time we don't smell it is the long stretches between car wrecks.

Tammy circles around the North side of the building. Gary stays by the entrance, trying to tell if there are any trapped inside. She waits, like she has done this before, and fires at the two in the area with the tanks. She misses once, but kills them both. By now she is running a little low on arrows, so they meet back up by the entrance. He gives her a handful of his, and they try the doors. "It's no good, they are locked." Gary reports back. "We might have to break in, tell us if any are near us, we might make a little..." he is saying as Tammy turns around and horse kicks the glass on the bottom of one door. It makes a bit of noise, but appears to work. Two zombies start to wander over, having been close enough to have heard something. 

"Two, from North housing, coming your way." I say alerting them. Tammy readies her bow and Gary works on the doors. Time passes slowly, Gary is inside and working the reluctant lock, Tammy outside now moving a bit to hunt them down. We watch it happen in slow motion, as the two see her moving, and both cry out in hunger. She fires immediately, taking one down, but the other is fast, covering a dozen feet in a split second. She is still pulling a second arrow from her quiver, when it closes the distance, getting within fifteen feet. By now several more are starting to come. Then I hear the crack of James' rifle. The one closing on Tammy goes down, his head all but exploding. 

"Damn, that was a great shot!" I say amazed.

"Uhh sure, I was aiming for his chest." James says as he loads the next round. Suddenly it seems less impressive. Still, it worked. The horses are not used to gun shots, and start to get skittish. I am struggling to keep them steady, as he aims for the new ones coming.

"James..." I say trying to get his attention.

"Not now, I'm busy." he says focused on the new threat.

"James, really, we gotta go." I say kicking his foot to get his attention. He turns to give me a dirty look, but sees four coming at us from what we think was a camping area. "Tammy, we are screwed, we gotta get out of here." I radio to her. They can't hear it however, I guess. We get no reply. James is getting up and helping me split the lead lines of the horses, so we can ride to a safe distance, then try to get back to the others.

"What does Tammy say?" he asks. I can see him formulating a plan. 

"No answer, they didn't say anything." I tell him as I saddle up. He does as well, and then turns in a couple circles, trying to keep his horse steady. They are afraid, they can feel the tension. 

"OK, give me the rest, we are going in, and getting them. You stay on the radio, try to warn them to get out, we are coming for them." he says. I nod, realizing just how well and truly screwed we are. He charges in, the horses running behind being led along. I follow, as well as I can, juggling the radio as I ride. I should point out, I am not the best rider, horses and I do not get along that wall, and right now, this one is really not wanting to do this. I wish it understood English, I would love to tell it how I totally agree.

By now, the majority of the zombies we saw, have gathered at the North end of the housing area, spilling out of a hole in the fence, towards the camp grounds. This thankfully, also brings them away from Tammy and Gary, but also means they are headed kind of towards us. James and the horses put distance between me and him, as they charge to the rescue. I bring up the rear, finally hearing Tammy asking what the hell is going on. They heard the hoard forming in the housing area, from inside the building. "Get out, we are coming, be ready to ride any second! We have to go!" I yell over the radio, realizing how stupid that is, they can hear me just fine even if I just talk, because they have a volume knob. OK, so I am not the brightest light bulb in the closet.

"OK, we will be ready." she says and I nod, again, realizing, they can't hear me nod. So we race on, towards the doors. 

James arrives at the doors just before the hoard notices us, and turns towards the building Tammy and Gary were in. They swarm it, the faster of them rushing forward. As they mount up, the first of them are already within a dozen feet, so we have no choice but to retreat to the West and circle the building. That puts us in a position of going through the field of tanks and stuff. Being a bit behind, I catch the dust and dirt kicked up by the rest, as they chase through the old tanks. That is when we see a second hoard coming at us from the highway side of the housing area. This really compounds things. There are way more than we thought, and we are now trapped between a hoard to the North, the new hoard to the South, and the hoard we know is coming from the West. We have no choice but to risk going through the housing area.

This entire plan has fallen apart so fast, we don't have time to discuss what our strategy is. Right now it seems to be "ride as fast as you can in a direction that does not have zombies." To be fair, it seems to be working so far. Then again, there is the story about the man that jumps off the tall building. All the way down, he keeps saying "so far so good..."

Tammy and Gary lead the way, they jump the fence, coming down on the housing side. James leads the spare horse to it, and his horse makes it, but the spare balks, yanking the lead line from his hand. It stops just in my way, and I end up riding into it. I don't really recall what happens exactly, other than falling and hitting the ground hard. That is when everything kind of goes fuzzy for me.

I am probably only out for a few seconds, but in that time, James has circled back, realizing that neither the spare horse, nor I are following. Tammy and Gary have stopped and are watching to see what is happening. That is when the Northern hoard arrives. I can hear him calling for me, but all I see is blood. It is from my horse, which fell hard onto something poking up, and ended up getting gutted. In a way, I am fortunate, it spilled mostly on the ground, but enough got on me to make me smell like guts. The fastest zombies are already upon the spare horse, and are taking it down, since it can't really walk, not as injured as it is. The rest swarm at my dead horse. I have been crawling away, more like dragging myself, since I am so dizzy, I can't stand up without falling. 

I crawl under a hole in the fence, and toward a mobile home. The zombies are in a feeding frenzy, and this gives me a small window of opportunity, so I get to the side of a mobile home, then tug at the metal skirting the bottom, until I can crawl under and push it back in place. My head is throbbing, and I feel sick, so I close my eyes and lay on my back, trying to get the world to stop spinning. I feel myself falling, falling...

When I wake, my head is sore. It is very dark, and I can hear the zombies still out there, making that terrible moaning sound they make. I am cold, hungry, and unsure where I am. I roll over, feeling my clothes stuck to me. I crawl towards the far end of the dark area I am in, slowly starting to remember. I am under a house. I am careful to put as much distance as I can between myself and the zombies. This becomes difficult, as I get tangled in a few spider webs, having to clear my way. I do reach the other side, and it takes me more than a little effort, to push the skirting out far enough to wiggle out from under the house.

The entire damn community here must have turned at the same time. I have never seen that many zombies in one area. Standing up is a struggle, I am still a bit wobbly, and in bad shape. Having no choice, I try a window, crawling inside and hoping nobody else is home. Thankfully, I come down into a nice soft bed. Thank you, for the small favors, universe. I know I can't stay here. They will devour those horses soon if not already. I have to get out of here before they swarm this area again, trapping me inside.

I open the bedroom door, seeing a bathroom right there. I see my reflection, I look like hell. I feel even worse. I search the house, finding a gym bag and some clothing from a girl a bit smaller than myself. I figure, it would be best to get stuff that will stretch, so reluctantly, I get just a bunch of athletic clothes, stuffing them into the bag. I find a baseball bat, but nothing else of use. Leaving the house is easy, but the trailer park area itself is more or less enclosed. I start to walk, wondering how the hell I am going to escape this. Trapped in the middle of the desert, on foot, with nothing but a baseball bat, sounds like the end to me.

I sneak along, slowly, until I discover a bicycle. It looks to be nearly new, so I get on and start to ride out the Eastern side of the housing area. As I emerge, I realize why there are so many zombies. It appears a large aircraft tried to land on the airstrip, but somehow did not quite make it. There is a huge jet plane laying on its belly, off to the side of the housing area. I guess the passengers escaped that, only to become infected. Poor bastards didn't even have a fair chance. Right now, I am not in much better shape. I ride down the runway, into the darkness. I can't go too close to the highway, I have nothing to fight the zombies that periodically seem to be wandering along, and I can't peddle fast enough to out run the faster ones. I decide that I will just stay to the dark, get as far as I can, then worry what the hell to do about food and water.

I ride for about two hours, it is slow going over the broken desert. Often I am just walking, and very slowly too. It is surprising, when I see lights. Having nothing else to do, I turn toward them and start to peddle. With luck, all the zombies will converge at that strange little tank building area, and tear each other apart. As for me, I want to get to the lights, and at least try to find something to drink. I am so thirsty. I am cold, and right now, I am so disgustingly filthy, I could cry.

I discover a road that leads toward the lights. I ride along until I get to it, and find the road blocked by a fence. I leave the bike at the gate, climbing over, and walking towards the first of the houses. To my surprise, I can't find any sign of zombies. I also can't find any sign of humans. This is confusing, and makes me feel more afraid than if I found one or the other. I get to the first house, finding it unlocked. This is strange, in every community I have ever lived in, which admittedly is not that many, nobody leaves their house unlocked. Right now, I am not in a position to complain, so I go inside, closing the door behind me.

Without giving it much thought, I head towards the first bathroom I see, and start the water. I need to get clean, I feel so filthy, it's like my skin is sandpaper. The shower feels so good, and I change into clean clothes, laying on a bed in one of the bedrooms. I rest for a little bit, then get up and search the house, finding it has been cleaned out of anything to eat. I understand now, the community must have been warned of the infection, and packed up to escape it. That is a big assumption, and I can't rely on being right. If I am wrong, my life will come to a very brutal end.

The spandex stuff fits, but feels rather tight, providing no protection. I will have to be careful, if i cut myself badly, any infection now could kill me. I am careful as I look through some other houses, finding a pair of pants to go over my leggings, and later a hoodie that is a bit large, but warm. There is even a swimming pool, which I think might be welcome if I should need to stay here. I also find a tennis court, though I am rubbish at that, and without anyone to play with, seems useless now. I walk back toward the first house, then notice what I had over looked before. There are fairly recent horse droppings. I see them over by one of the other houses I have not yet looked at. Inside I see some blood stained clothes, some of our first aid kit that was used, and several empty food tins. They were here. They must have seen the lights, and came through here as well. That means they escaped! I go back outside, seeing three sets of hoof prints on the dirt, so all three made it, or at least seem to have. Good. That means they will be headed to Blythe. I just have to figure out a way to find them.

I loot the rest of the houses, but my friends have already gotten to them, which explains the unlocked doors. They probably went through windows and unlocked them from the inside. That also explains why everything was gone. Wow, we are like locusts. Well, you do what you must to survive. I suppose if there were any zombies in this little tiny community, they killed them off, but it doesn't stink like that, so I think it was evacuated. That means the infection did not spread so fast that people didn't have time to flee. That gives me some hope that maybe somewhere out there, is a safe community. I am fortunate, that I do find a working iPad, and it is not locked up. I open Safari and put in the web address for our school web site, as James showed me. I can't get internet service here, but that is OK, it means if I can find a WiFi signal, I can leave them a message, I am still alive!

I know I can not ride that bicycle fast enough to catch them, not through the desert, so I will have to hope they stop in Blythe, long enough for me to catch up. For now, I need time to rest, to heal, and to find enough supplies to at least make it to the next stop. I go to the house with the swimming pool, searching around until I find a girls room. She looks to be older than me, a bit bigger, so that helps. I go through her clothes, finding what I can use, then finding a new pair of sneakers. Mine are shot. They fit well, and I am glad for that. I do wear two pairs of socks to make them fit, but we do what we must. At least now I have a nice jacket, her book bag from whatever school was out here, and a couple changes of clothes. This is progress. One step at a time.

I rest the next day as well, finally feeling more or less back to myself. I do go back to get my bicycle, searching the little guard shack by the gate. I find a log in it, saying how the community was evacuating to the Army Reserve camp somewhere in Arizona. Seems fair enough. According to the log, the Army came to ensure the power plant was intact and safe. That makes sense, they would want to ensure the power grid was intact. I suppose also to keep the people that run it safe. I wish we had arrived before that, but we were going as fast as we could. I am sure the others are just as frustrated, they are only a little better off, since much of the water was lost when the spare horse went down. In the confusion, I guess nobody had time to even consider how it was supposed to get over that fence with the Travois. Well, considering this is our first zombie apocalypse, I guess we can be forgiven. The learning curve is rather steep after all. I certainly have failed a few tests along the way.

Well, there will be nothing else here, it has been picked over pretty well, so go back to the house with the pool, get another good night sleep, then in the morning, I will head off towards the next stop along the way to Blythe. I know it will be tough, but I will peddle on and maybe one day find my friends. I just hope they stay safe, and I do too, until then.


	6. Chapter 6

How long has it been? I forget now. It seems forever, maybe only a month now. The days have kind of blurred into an endless nightmare. Part of me wants to block it out, to just pretend it isn't real. If I can just pretend it is only some game, some stupid new LARP, then I don't have to accept the fact that my family is probably dead. It comes in waves, I guess. Sometimes I think I'm going to be OK, then an hour later I am crying again. Sitting still, letting my mind wander, gets me into such a dark place. The odds, a world gone mad, three of my friends out there, thinking I am dead, and here am I, a little kid. I don't even have a gun or bow to fight with. This baseball bat won't do much against those things. By the time I swing it once, the faster ones could have me down and eating my face off. My only chance is to just not be seen. That is next to impossible. It is like they can sense humans. 

Wow, I have already started to think of them as something other than human. These things are people... were people. I have no idea what they are now, but I know they would eat me alive if they got the chance. I can't out run them, and even with the bicycle, I would still get run down. They are very fast. So OK, what do we do Ellie? First step, gather what you can. Tammy always said, "what we got is all we got. If we don't have it, we won't get it." So, I will need something to carry water, food, and some changes of clothing. There are only a few houses here, and I think I found the only one with anything that would fit me. Unfortunately, its nothing really protective. Speaking of protection, I will need something more than a baseball bat. Priorities. I need food and water first. I need first aid and camping supplies. I need clothing and a weapon. I need to find some way to let my friends know I'm alive. OK, well, I might find a useful WiFi signal somewhere, but the ones here are all password protected. So it's time for me to get riding.

I ride along the road, East, finding a couple of parking areas with some vehicles left behind. I use the baseball bat to smash the windows and get inside. I may as well get used to looting cars, well, looting in general. This is going to be a lot like video games I think. Grand Theft Auto, Zombie City. One nice thing is, many newer cars have a little lever by the door that pops the trunk. That helps, and I find a few items, like road flares, a flashlight that you shake to make work, a couple minor first aid kits, and a rather nice looking knife. That will be useful, I am sure.

Farther along I get to what must be the control center of the power plant. It is locked up, as would be expected. I don't think Tammy and the boys came by here, it looks like they are following the road off to the side, like we had been. They can do that with the horses, they can out run anything they might run into. On a bicycle, not so much so, but it beats being on foot. I won't pass up the chance to loot here. It might have something useful.

I use the key (bat) to open the doors. (breaking and entering, my new hobby) It feels nice, the air conditioning is still running. The reception area is nice, very well kept. I am very pleased to see the snack machines are still fully stocked. Well, I can fix that. I have this key that opens everything! There is a security office. First I will check that out. They seem to have a lot of computer equipment, something James would have loved. 

I search the security office, finding a pistol in a holster, that doesn't fit me. I just sling it over my shoulder. OK, that helps. I guess whoever owns it, left it behind during the evacuation. That makes sense actually, if the military evacuated this place, they certainly would not have wanted the civilians to be armed. Well, it's to my benefit, so I won't complain. The gun actually helps me a little. I feel so scared, being alone. What if something happens to them? What if I am all alone in the world? What if there is nobody else? Sure, the Army probably has something out there, somewhere. That doesn't mean I will ever find it. I slide down the wall, hugging my knees, feeling so isolated. I have never felt this alone before. I've been left behind, and I have no idea what to do. I don't even know why we are going to Blythe. I don't know what Tammy and Gary expect to find there. I don't understand why we left the school. I don't understand what is happening. How can people be zombies? This can't be real. I'm too little to take care of myself. I can't even drive! This isn't fair! I hate this! I don't want this, I want it to go away. I want my mom and dad.

Crying helps. I know it seems stupid, sitting here crying like a baby, but it helps. I cry for an hour or so, letting it out, screaming, hitting the wall, stamping my feet. This is all I have left. Everything else in my world is gone. After I get it out of my system, I get back up. It is time to open the snack machine. It does take a couple of swings, but eventually it breaks and I am able to gather up a lot of great looking snacks. Fortunately, in an office, I find the petty cash box, which is labeled "Petty Cash." I am able to use the cash in it to pretty much empty out the soda machine. That will help as well, since it had several bottles of water. The security office did have a dufflebag with some uniforms, but I emptied it and stuffed all the soda and snacks into it. I can maybe strap this onto the handlebars. I suppose I could try looking for car keys and trying to drive. I mean if I run into something, who cares, right? It's not like the police will come and arrest me. In fact, they have a few trucks outside that seem to be company trucks.

I do find the keys to them, in the managers office. It takes me a little time to get the right ones to the right trucks, but in an hour, I have them sorted, and am sitting behind the wheel. This will be harder than I thought, I am a little too short to reach the peddles and see over the dashboard at the same time. I stuff my backpack behind me to keep me sitting forward on the seat, then hold my breath and turn the key. it doesn't start right off but eventually rumbles to life. So far, so good. OK, so the lever on the steering wheel seems to change the gear thingy into forward or backwards or stop. I pull on it but it doesn't move. I try again, a little harder but it won't budge. I must be doing something wrong. I figure maybe it takes more strength so I try standing on the peddles and pulling really hard. It breaks off in my hands and I fall back onto the seat. OK, I won't be driving this one. I turn the key off and get out, pulling my backpack on. So much for driving. If I can't figure this one out, I won't be able to figure the others out. They all look pretty much the same. I leave the keys in the trucks, since there is nobody left alive to steal them.

It takes me a little work, but I get the bag of food and drinks wrapped around the handlebars of my bicycle. First chance I get, I will get one with a rack or something. Until then, I have to make what I have work. I suppose it's better this way. I have no idea how much gas is in one of those trucks, or how to put more in. They are also kinda loud. If there were zombies anywhere around, that would definitely bring them running. And speaking of zombies, if that hoard keeps migrating East, they might be getting close. I need to keep moving. As nice as this place is, I can't stay here. Besides, my friends are already way ahead of me. Every hour I let pass, is another hour ahead they are.So I get on my bicycle and start to ride along the road, pleased to see there is a canal running by it. The thought of that water running along the side of the road is nice, it makes it seem not so hot out. The road turns to dirt, which doesn't seem to bother the bicycle one bit. I peddle along, wondering whats next. According to the map I found of the area around the power plant, there should be some kind of rest stop or something a ways up the road. With luck, it wont be full of zombies, and who knows, maybe Tammy and the boys will be there resting the horses.

I ride for what feels like hours. I have to turn off this nice canal side road when it starts to go back North. So I travel along the highway, just off the side. This is much harder on a bicycle. The highway is much more empty. There is basically a car or truck here or there sometimes, but nothing like what we saw coming out of the city. Where there is a car or truck, I can see the trunk up, so I figure Tammy and the boys probably already looted it. No point in going over them, besides, I am really getting tired. Peddling a bicycle through the desert is not so easy. it isn't that its hard, but it is very hot, and the road seems to go on forever. If I was on foot, I would have given up by now. What takes me this long would take me a dozen times longer on foot. Not to mention, I would have to carry everything. This way, it just rolls along with me.

I finally arrive at the edge of something I find out is called Desert Center. I hope that doesn't mean this is the center of the desert. That even sounds depressing. Here I am, in the center of the desert. I take a deep breath, sitting down on the side of the road, drinking a warm soda, eating some crackers with some kind of cheese spread between them. I never liked these before, but right now, they taste like shit. Yea, even hungry, they don't taste any better, but I'm willing to eat them. It is getting a bit late in the day, so I figure, I should at least try to get into the buildings there and see if I can find somewhere to spend the night. I walk my bike up towards the building I see closest to the highway. It looks safe enough. I can see smoke from a fire still burning a little North of me. It wasn't there yesterday, so that's new. It could be anything. It could be zombies or maybe something overheating, or other survivors. It could be Tammy and the boys, but I doubt it. I try my iPad, it actually gets a WiFi signal. I check on the school web site and see that James posted some thoughts about me, from the rest too. They sound sad. I post a reply, saying I'm not dead yet. They probably won't be able to see that until they get to the next stop where they can get WiFi. That appears to be Blythe, so maybe they can tell me where to find them when I arrive. Hopefully they will be waiting for me. I hope they are OK, it seems James was really mad at Tammy for the whole "jumping the fence" thing. He punched her a few times until Gary pulled him off her. That explains the used bandaids. I check the maps and see there is a golf course to the North, about where the smoke is. I decide not to investigate that. Housing communities and golf courses seem to be warnings of zombies. It would be really great to loot that place, but alone, it might be way too dangerous. All I have is the pistol, that I have never shot. I have no faith I can even hit anything. It is more just knowing that if a zombie were to come at me, I at least have a fighting chance.

I use my universal key on a small window on the side of the building, then crawl through. I hear a groan from the other side of the door. I don't want to use the pistol, so I take out my bat and open the door a peek. I take a relieved breath when it's just a poor little doggy that has been trapped in here, starving. I see he has torn open the big bag of food he had, and its scattered all over, but it looks like it is mostly eaten. It also stinks, he shit all over the place. Great. I find a safe place, and it smells like zombies. Just wonderful. Well, with nothing else to do, I go past, and unlock the door. Doggy dives outside and runs off, so I shrug, going around to the side and getting my bicycle. I push it inside and close the door, locking it up.

That night, the zombies from the golf course walk around the place, and the area in general, searching for food, I guess. They seem to wander aimlessly, and surprisingly, they don't seem to realize I am in the building. Well, I see no advantage in announcing it, so I lay low, even falling asleep. I didn't mean to, but I do, I am so tired. By morning, they have cleared out of the area, back to wherever it is they came from, I guess. That is strange. The zombies seem to be working according to some kind of pack mentality. It is like they are evolving, becoming somehow smarter. I try not to think about that. I actually want them to stay stupid. It might make it easier to survive this nightmare. Still, today i have no choice, I have to start the longest ride of my life. Today I start my ride to Blythe. I am pretty much halfway from the city, to Blythe, so from here, it is all just desert. I will have to sleep in the desert at least once, maybe twice. On paper it seems like I could make it in a day, like 30 miles. The bicycle, however, is not that easy to peddle with all the weight I have on it, and the road goes up and down, which makes it harder. I also get very tired, and have to rest from time to time, and of course, any time i see a car on the highway, I get off, walk my bike to the fence, lift it over, and walk my bike past the vehicles, afraid of finding some zombies hanging about, like they do. That is how I traveled so far, and it is how I will make it to Blythe from here. it will be slow, and it will be ever so hot. For the first time, I am thankful I am wearing cool stretchy spandex. It makes the exercise less... work. So once I have eaten a candy bar, and drank some water, I head off, starting down the highway... the road... just like the movie.


	7. Chapter 7

Summer in the desert is brutal. The heat is energy draining. If you ever want to know what a summer in the desert is like, preheat your oven to 450, crack the door, then place your face about 5 inches from the door. On foot, I would probably be dead by now. I have to cover around forty five miles, more or less. It might even be fifty. Figuring in the number of times I will probably have to get off the road, go through the desert, to avoid zombies, then get back on and ride, it feels like I am asking the impossible from myself. If I had a choice, I would say screw it, and just go home. I obviously can not stay here. The zombies are definitely here, somewhere farther North, but they will return, I can see the patterns in the dirty trails, where they migrate back and forth in their never ending search for food. Should I stick around here, I will likely become that food. All it would take is one random accident, a plate or can knocked over, a scrape or cut to expose blood, or catching me out as I scavenge for food myself.

I set out at daybreak, as soon as the last of the zombies return from wherever they come from. To give myself a good start, I turn on the shower, let it soak me entirely, then walk my bike to the road. My wet clothing feels great in the hot desert breeze. I don't know how hot it is out, but I can see the heat mirage in the distance. It makes the land look like water. It shimmers and blurs, beautiful, but deadly. The breeze is barely there at all, just teasingly enough to dry sweat, as well as clothing far too quickly. It doesn't allow my body to cool off at all. I will probably over heat if I ride too hard. I have never rode a bicycle across a desert before, so I am not sure how hard "too hard" is. The learning curve is steep. If I make a mistake, I die. If I get a flat tire, I die. If I run out of water, I die. If I heatstroke, I die. There is a certain theme going here. The odds, it seems, are not in my favor.

The first couple hours are rough, I am uncomfortable, my legs ache already, and I am just getting started. My back hurts from straining over the handle bars, but it beats walking. I pass an over turned truck. Its huge trailer is laying atop two small cars. It looks like the cars tried to stop the truck or something. I stop and crouch down off the road, leaning my bike on its kick stand. It falls over, naturally, scaring the hell out of me. I want to see what's in the cars and truck. Also, I would like to sit in the shade of the trailer for a little bit and rest. The hills so far have been a bit unkind, and the breeze is going against me, making it even harder. So I crouch down, watching the wreck. There doesn't seem to be anyone there, which doesn't mean there are no zombies, it just means they are not moving around. I have noticed they seem to be more active at night for some reason. I wait for a while, getting impatient, then slowly I approach the wreck. 

As I hoped, there doesn't seem to be any zombies. This bothers me a little. So far, every wreck at least had one or two, dead or alive, laying about. I have never come across one yet, that was abandoned. I look around now, nervously. If they arn't here, then just where ARE they? Could there be another hoard forming somewhere ahead? This leads me to ask myself, if so, how do they know to gather? What makes them do that? I don't care for any of the answers that come to mind. Most are like how wolves pack together. Wolves can take down large prey, and lots of it, in significant numbers. By the look of how many people became zombies, it seems, there are numbers enough to end the few survivors like us. From what I saw on the web site, it seemed like the plague has not hit everywhere. It seems to have skipped many countries, though for how long is anyone's guess. Hopefully they will have something ready to stop it. It would be nice if there was some place we, the last fragments of America, can go, can run to. They can burn the country to the ground after that, burn it to the ground! Nothing survives the flames, so I say cleanse it with fire, make it glow. Kill every last zombie.

I make it to the truck, crawling under part of it, where it is resting atop the cars, so I can get to the open side, where it ruptured. A hand grabs my sleeve, scaring the shit out of me. I instinctively pull back, yanking the arm holding on further from inside one of the crushed cars. It yanks again, nearly knocking me off my feet. I grab my sleeve, trying to tear it free, but another arm reaches out and grabs my shirt. I can tell, they are the arms of the dead, trying to bring me to them, to eat. I swing at one arm, the one holding my sleeve, and my bat strikes it around the elbow. I hear a bone break, then the arm kind of lets go, bending in a sickeningly wrong way. The other arm yanks harder, spinning me around and I drop my bat, trying to keep on my feet.

My bat rolls under the car, of course. I feel the arm yank again and suddenly my back slams against the door, my head hitting hard. I grunt, seeing stars for a few seconds as I react. This was stupid, why did I crawl under? I am such a dumbass. If I survive this, it won't be because I am smarter than the zombies. Again it yanks, but this time my shirt rips, giving me a chance. I roll away, as a face bounces off my backpack, teeth snapping over and over by my ear. It actually bites my hair, tangling in some as I try to spin away. I yelp in pain, but I can't stop, I yank at my hair, feeling some come out, and some of it cut by the teeth of the zombie. I land against the tires of the truck. It knocks the wind out of me and I really can't breath. The arm clutches at me over and over, the shoulder and head leaning out the door as far as it is capable of it. The face never strays from me, gnashing its teeth over and over, starving, desperate for food. I feel the trickle of blood on the side of my head where a little of my hair was pulled out, and it hurts. I also have bruises and scrapes now, from the jostling I just received. I want to take my gun and kill it, but I don't want to waste the bullets.

The bat rolled under that car, so I abandon it. I am not getting under that car. I close my eyes for a second, then get up, feeling dizzy and still having a hard time getting a breath. This was a mistake, but I will have to learn to loot wrecks if I want to survive. I have to survive. My friends will be waiting for me. I have to get to them. I can't sit here feeling sorry for myself, I have to go. I lean over the back wheels of the big truck, then throw up several times. I need to get it out of my system. I am terrified, and I need to learn to get control of my fear. If not, my fear will take control of me, and then it will be over for me. Just like in gymnastics, I have to challenge my limits, not limit my challenges. This is a time of letting go, of my youth, my innocence and my old life. I have to learn to be strong, to be fearless. I have to be my own hero, because nobody is coming to rescue me.

I feel a little stronger after my little self pep-talk. A couple deep breaths, and I pick up a long piece of metal from the broken side of the trailer. I wrap the remains of my shirt around my hands, then hold the metal piece and turn and stab it into the face of the zombie. "Eat this, you bitch!" I snarl at it, getting angry. OK, I'm ready. This world wants a fight, I can do that. I leave it sticking out of its face as it howls in rage, dying horribly. There must be at least one more in that car, because I hear it howling in rage, unable to even see me now, but smelling my blood and hearing my voice. "You'll starve, buddy." I say angrily, now turning to the open side of the trailer. 

The truck was hauling some kind of machinery. It looks like electronics of some sort, nothing of use to me. I walk over to the cab and see the door is closed, but the windshield is busted out where the driver must have flown through it. I turn and look and can see the bloody smear that was a driver. A couple weeks or more in the desert sun has reduced him to picked over bones. Either the buzzards got him, or the insects or the small animals that hide in the ground. I reach up and pull at the door. It opens with a creak, glass spilling out onto the ground. I have never been in a big truck like this, so I have a little trouble climbing up into it. I can do it though, I am a gymnast after all. Once inside, I see it is HUGE inside. The driver had a little area behind his seat to sleep, cook, watch TV. I search the cab, finding a revolver and several bullets, a big hatchet, a metal baseball bat, thank you. I find several cans of food, some drinks, and his laptop. I have no use for the laptop, so I leave it behind. I decide to take his light jacket, and a couple of tee shirts. I slip one on, it is far too large, but it keeps the sun off me.

My bike reluctantly rolls along again, as I make my way East. As the day goes on, it starts to get too hot to be out here. I ride for a couple more hours, making very slow progress. The hills are brutal, they are not really tall, but gradual and the constant uphill peddling is so very hard. It slows me down to a crawl. I could almost run faster than this. Well, truth be told, I could, but I would not get far. I finally come to what seems to be three RV's parked along the side of the road. I am cautious about this. They may be survivors, but that poses a problem for me. If they are just hanging out, out here, they will be out of food and water, and might see what I have as their only hope. If they are not survivors, then whatever is in those RV's will be very hungry, and these damn zombies are hella strong. Still, it is so hot, I can't go any farther. I park my bike, this time it stays up.

I draw the revolver. It seems easier to use. I think I understand how to reload, having seen it done in video games. Push the little thingy on the side, tilt out the round part, the bullets come out, and I just push new ones into the holes, then push the round part back up until it clicks. I can do that. If only cars worked like they do in games. Anyhow, I walk over to the first RV, putting my ear to the side. I don't hear movement, but these zombies can remain still like they are sleeping, for long periods of time. I tap the side of the RV a few times. I don't hear anything. I dare to peek into the window. There are four bodies in it. It looks like they opted for the easy way out. There are blood sprays on the side of the interior, about where their heads would have been had they been sitting upright. I carefully walk past, to the second RV. Three people. Same situation. I go to the last RV, seeing the door is still ajar. I don't know where the driver or passengers from this one are. I look around and find them. A woman and a child are both laying side by side, judging by the dried pools of blood near whats left of their lower arms, they died from cutting their wrists. The man, not far away, hanging from a rope over the side of the overpass. I guess we all deal with this in our own way. For these people, it must have been the radio reports that this thing was everywhere. They may have fled Arizona, hoping to get to safety in California, or something. I don't know.

After a few minutes of walking my bike over to the trio of RV's, I climb into the last one, the empty one, and lay back on the little sofa it has. It is damn hot in here, but I am out of the sun, and that hot breeze. I drink some of my soda, eating some more of those nasty cracker things. I think I may be about half way, but this is as far as I am going today. It is too hot to go on, and I am exhausted. For now, I will take some respite here, among the dead. It smells, as it does everywhere. I imagine soon, plague will start to spread. Well, a different plague. Technically, I suppose the zombie thing is likely a plague. With so many corpses laying all over, diseases will start to manifest. In a strange way, surviving the outbreak itself is easier than surviving the aftermath. Well, I should say, in theory. Nobody really knows, since this is the first, and hopefully ONLY zombie apocalypse. I hope that someday, if I survive this, I can look back at this, and feel some sense of just how huge it is. Right now, it just doesn't seem real.

My dreams are troubling, as they have been since this started. Arms appear out of the darkness, grabbing at me, always pulling at me. I see faces, all sorts of faces, always teeth gnashing, eyes covered in a film, empty, dead. No matter how I twist, how I run, they are always just there, pulling me back into their darkness. "You can't escape me..." I hear a voice say. Every time I hear the same voice. I wake with a scream. I always do. Always in a cold sweat, always shaking. I cry until the tears don't come, then I lay shivering in terror until the fear subsides. It is always the same. Something is out there, something that won't easily let me go. I won't quit though. I have come this far.

It is dark out, cooler. I can't see far enough to try riding at night. That thought did occur to me before. Without a reliable means to see, I would be risking riding right into a hoard. I would not last five minutes. I open the door, walking out into the night air. It is cooler, reinvigorating. I slide down the side of the RV till I am sitting on my heels, hugging my knees. As I look up at the stars, I want to ask, "why did you do this to us?" I want to scream "How can you just let us all die like this?" I want to know. I need to somehow work this out in my head. How can this simply happen like this? I was raised to believe that God was kind. He was gentle and compassionate, forgiving, and just. How can this be? I can't wrap my head around how this can exist in the same world. It would be like torturing the ants in an ant farm, but then expecting them to see me as a benevolent force. If I cared for them, I would prevent their pointless, brutal deaths. If I was merciful and loving, I would not poison them, watching them die in agony. I can't square this in my head. It bothers me, and I start to wonder, were we abandoned? Were we killed out of anger? I don't understand how little infants could deserve this kind of death. Maybe I will never understand it. Somehow, though, I need to. I have to make sense of this. It can't just be, random and meaningless. If so, then all life was random and meaningless. It means there never was a point to life. Life itself was merely a random mistake of proteins and other stuff, just mixing in a way that somehow produced life. If all of this is just humanity losing the lottery in one huge gamble, then everything, all that I have ever held dear, was all just a lie.

If life is just a mistake, a temporary random mix of cosmic dust, then there is nothing after this. When we die, we are just gone. I lean back against the RV, feeling the cool metal against my back. What does it matter? Is that what these people finally realized? That there is no escape? There is no point to going on? Maybe that is what happened here. I don't know. I admit, sitting here, with my gun in my hand, it does seem to very tempting, just lean my head back, close my eyes forever, and one pull of the trigger, nobody would blame me. Since this started, I have killed... well, people. Not people like they once were, but they were once people none the less. I have stole things. I have wished death to some, and now, even contemplated my own death. I hardly recognize my face in the reflection I see. Under the dirt, behind the bloodshot eyes, past the pained expression, is a girl that I have never known was in me. I don't know if I like her, or will ever grow to love her. She is savage, hardened, and angry. To be fair, there is little difference between her and them. They kill by instinct, fearless by madness, and deadly by design. She is devious, determined to survive, willing to kill and steal and more. How much more, I wonder? I never knew I had this much anger, hatred in me. I do hate them. I hate what they are, I hate how they took everything from me. I hate how they even took my very self, from me. I don't like what I am becoming. I am afraid. If any of us do survive this, what kind of people will we be? What kind of world will we build? If we are all so angry, so afraid, so willing to fight, to kill, to take what we want, then do we really deserve to live? Maybe that is what God is deciding. Maybe that is what this is all about. Maybe it is to see just what we will become, when everything we are, is torn away from us.

I drink some more soda, wondering at how the thoughts can come to a lost soul, in the night, in the middle of the desert. I rub my temples, my whole body sore. In a few hours, it will be time to move on. Soon I will have to find it within myself, to get back on that bike, and force the pedals round and round. I will put miles behind me, and go forward to some end that I don't even understand. We are all headed to some place far away, and we don't know why. Still, California belongs to the dead, there is no going back. I suppose if Arizona is just the same, then if I can find Tammy and the boys, we will just keep going. Eventually, we will either die, or find somewhere, or maybe, if some European Army comes to rescue us, we will leave all this behind. Then we will have to answer the rest of the questions. We will have to face ourselves, and survive ourselves. That battle may be just as hard. These people lost that battle, here, in the middle of the desert. I admit, I'm struggling with it too. I am so tired. I really do want to just lay down and end this nightmare. I can't though. Tammy and the boys will be waiting for me. I have to go on, if nothing else, for them. Maybe that is enough, for now. I have a purpose, however small. Maybe it isn't enough just to live, maybe we really DO need something to live for.

I lay back against the cool metal of the RV until the sun peeks up over the distant horizon. It is now getting light enough to see. It is time to go. I search the other RV's finding a few bottles of water they had not opened. I take those, then wet my head, feeling the water trickle down my back and chest. It feels so good. It is like pure life, soaking into me. It is odd, sitting here among the dead, I can feel the life flow into me. My bicycle is so heavy. It creaks as I push it. It was not built to carry this much weight, I am sure. I was lucky, to find a girls bike though. I had seen a few others, but they were too big for me to ride properly. They may have been better built though, and handled the weight better. Well, no use worrying about that now. This is what I have, so this is what I must work with. I do find some sunglasses, so as I get on the bike for another excruciating day of riding, I slip them on. Shit, now it's harder to see. Oh well, I won't be staring into the rising sun, and besides, it kinda feels cool to be wearing sunglasses at night. Well, early morning I guess, but in my mind, its night, and I am now a badass. In my head I hear George Thorogood and that guitar start up. OK, bring it on, I'm ready for another day.


	8. Chapter 8

My ride this morning has been just as demanding as yesterday. The hills... they seem like one huge hill. Then long straight stretches of open nothing. I am parched and over heating by the time I come to another overpass. This one has a small truck stop off to the North. As I get closer to the truck stop, I can see it is occupied, of course, by a dozen or so zombies. It really feels weird to say that. Zombies... I would have never, in a month of Sundays, thought there would ever be zombies in my world. I have no means to fight them, so I abandon the idea of going to the truck stop itself. Then I notice the smoke.

In the field, off to the East, I can see a tendril of smoke. It is hard to make out, in the bright sky. You might think smoke would be very easy to see in the clear desert sky, but you would think wrong. It is so bright out, that the grey smoke looks like nothing more than some all too familiar dust. I abandon the bike, now curious, what is this about? It looks to be a few hundred meters off, close enough I can walk there. I put on my hoodie, though I am already warm, so I can stuff a couple bottles of soda in the pockets. I know that drinking hot soda will not help much with dehydration, but not drinking anything at all, surely would be worse. I also take the 9mm pistol. I know it is a 9mm, because it says so on the side. I would take the revolver, but it is larger and heavier. I will need to carry as little as possible, because I will be going over some hard broken terrain.

I start my trip, unsure what I will find, but hoping it is a camp fire or something. I know it is risky, but at this point, I am desperate to find at least one other living human. I can't even loot a truck stop on my own. A dozen zombies, possibly with two or three fast ones, and I am just the latest serving of fresh meat. I need help if I am going to survive, I know that. I hope I can find some help soon, if not, I may not survive this. I have made it most of the way, but I am nearly out of stuff to drink, and have nothing to eat. I am exhausted from riding that bike, and I am not entirely sure it will make it much farther. Riding on the highway does not seem to bother it, but I spend a lot of time off the highway, avoiding cars, or just avoiding what may or may not be dead people or zombies. It is hard to say. Zombies often seem dead, then suddenly spring to life when you are near, like those egg things in Alien.

As I get within about 50 meters or so, I can start to make out the source of the smoke. It is a crashed helicopter. I can see there are four bodies laying on the ground near by. There appears to be someone else, laying against the wreckage. Not knowing what to do, I ready the little pistol, like they do in movies. I make sure the thing on the back of the top is red, not white, and with all my might, I pull it back and let it go. It slams forward with a ring, and I figure, it must be ready to shoot, that's how they did it in Reservoir Dogs. I walk slowly toward the person laying against the helicopter. They look hurt, so I stop a few meters away. They notice me and lower their gun. I do the same, seeing that they had shot the people laying on the ground. "Umm... hi?" I say.

"What in the hell is a little girl doing out here?" they say. Well, two can play at that game.

"Same thing you are, I suppose." I say looking at the dead guys. They don't appear to be zombies. They are all dressed the same. They wear a denim shirt and what seems to be denim pants. Then I notice on the leg of the closest one, it says Prisoner.

"Well, OK, but where did you come from?" he asks. It is really hot out, and I am thirsty, over heated and not in the mood for small talk. I roll my eyes, shaking my head.

"Is this really the best time and place for this?" I ask, nodding towards the dead men. 

"I need to know. Where are you from? Is it safe there? Have you had an outbreak there?" he demands from me.

"I'm from California, and yea, California belongs to the zombies." I say rather sadly. 

"How the hell did you make it this far?" he says but I can tell he is not that interested. He coughs a bit and I see blood run down his chin.

"You are pretty banged up I guess." I say stepping closer. He shakes his head no, motions me back.

"No, I'm... infected. You better take this." he says tossing the gun he has at my feet. He throws his equipment vest to me as well, then grabs his stomach and chest, shaking as he falls to the ground. "Kill me... please?" he begs me. I hesitate, after all, I have never killed a human before, at least not one that isn't trying to eat me. Still, in a few seconds or more, he will be. I raise my pistol up and aim like in the video games, then pull the trigger. The gun jumps in my hands, scaring the hell out of me, but it hits him in the chest and after a few seconds, he lays there, limp. I wait a bit to see if he will start to move again, but he doesn't. After a few more minutes of throwing up, I finally get control of myself, and kneel down trying to stop my hands from shaking. I just killed someone. I can feel a little piece of myself die with him. Things will never be the same.

I pick up his gun and the gear vest, walking, rather wobbly I might add, to the side of the helicopter. I can see inside it, even though it is kind of on it's side. It is not totally on it's side, just kind of tilted up at a strange angle. There is another guy that looks like he was near the other door when it crashed, and was crushed under it. The half I can see is just his legs. The rest of him, I figure, must be under the crash. I peek farther and see two more in the front, but they both look like they were shot from behind. There is blood sprayed all over the inside of the window part, and neither seem to have much of a head left. I throw up again, sickened by what I see. They all seem to have been police officers. The side of the helicopter says California Department of Corrections. I guess that explains the dead guys outside, but they do not appear to have been in the crash itself. I try to think through how that worked out, but can't come up with any answers. Somehow they are in the same place as the helicopter. Strange...

I sit on a piece of the landing gear, a wheel that is laying on its side. The gun he gave me, it looks like one I have seen in a game. In the game, when I hit the reload button, the character touches something by where the bullet thing goes in the bottom. I check that out and see a button. When I press it, the bullet tube thingy comes out. OK, so that is how that works. I can see a lever on top, that in the game, he always pulls on. I pull it and it spits out a bullet. OK, so that must be how it gets ready to shoot. Fair enough. On the side it has little pictures of bullets. I figure, one means it shoots once. Three must mean it shoots three times. Five must mean it shoot them all really fast, like in the game. OK, I got this. I pick up the bullet that it spit out, with some effort, I push it into the bullet holding part. Then I can insert it into the gun, tap the bottom like he does in the game, then tug the lever, which then slides forward again. The lever on the bottom is pointing to one bullet. OK, I guess it will shoot if I pull the trigger. 

I loosen the little strap it has and put it over my shoulder and neck, like a bow. Then I check the rest of the gear he tossed me. It has four more of the bullet holding things, as well as some loose bullets. They are 9mm, according to the lettering on the back of one. That is good to know. I see he had a water bottle, some first aid kit, and a couple grenades. I see some little plastic ties too. There are also a few other things I can't figure out what they are, so I toss them aside, along with the grenades. Somehow the idea of carrying around something designed to explode, does not appeal to me. I also notice, it has a long metal tube. I bet I know what this is. In Wildlands, they always screw these on to the end of the gun barrel to make them really quiet. I give it a try, and sure enough it screws on. How about that, all those hours spent playing video games pays off. Video games may save my life. Take that you video game haters! Well, I suppose you could if you were not all dead.

I walk back to my bicycle, now very much over heated, with the vest and the addition of the heavier gun. Thankfully I can drink some of the water, it was unopened. If it had been opened, I would have thrown it away, in case it was contaminated. I am not sure anyone knows how this zombie thing spreads, but in the games and movies, it is by blood. So it stands to reason, it is likely also spread by saliva, so drinking contaminated water would possibly, likely, surely, infect me. I push my bicycle closer to the truck stop, now less afraid of the zombies. Now I have a bigger gun. I make sure the noise thingy is screwed on as tight as I can, then get behind some brush. They don't seem to be able to really see that far, at least according to what Tammy and Gary have seen. I raise the gun up, noticing that when I look through the little thing on top, it has a red glowing dot. I put that on the head of a zombie then slowly pull the trigger. The gun bucks a bit, but the zombie drops. YAY! Score one for humanity. Having this will even the score. I do the same several more times, before it stops shooting. I must have run out of bullets in the tube. I switch it out, same process as before, and go back to shooting zombies. In a relatively short time, I have killed them all, and they never even knew I was near. This is brilliant! I am happy with myself as I put the empty bullet tube in my vest, and walk over to the truck stop to see if they have anything to drink.

The truck stop does not have power, I am not sure why. The cooler with the water is no longer cold, but it is still full. I drink a bottle of water, celebrating my little war against the zombies, and resting in the cooler shade. Unfortunately, the time I took to go after the helicopter crash, and this, has taken that time out of my ability to travel any farther. I find a ladder to the top of the truck stop, then climb up on top of the building after sunset. It is safer up here. I don't think the zombies have figured out ladders. I lay on my back, looking up at the stars, wondering if those who are dead are looking down on me. If so, I wonder how they are judging me. I have killed someone today. That makes me a liar, and a thief, and now a murderer. 

During the night, I hear the usual cricket, some birds, feasting on the dead, and small rodents. The one thing that does surprise me, is I see light coming from the South. I see a lot of light. There is something huge over there, and it is very well lit. I pull out my road map I took from the hotel days ago, with James. I wonder how he is doing. Is he still alive? I hope so, I think...

The map says there is a prison over there. That explains a lot. The prison must be where the helicopter was from. Maybe it took off then the pilots started to turn, so they were shot by the guy I met. Or possibly, by the half a guy I didn't meet. The prisoners may have come looking for the wreckage, and maybe the guns. The guy I met must have been a guard. So if he shot them, they will be missed. That means the prisoners will be sending others out to look for them. I swallow. I can't stay here. I have to go, I have to go now! If I wait until morning, they will be out there and I have to go through that area. I can't push that bike very fast, the front end is starting to have problems from the weight of the big bag on the handlebars. I have to ride through that area as fast as I can, right now!

I climb down, taking a couple bottles of water and dumping them on myself to cool off. I will be peddling as fast as I can, and that means I will really be working. I get on my bike and start to ride, not really able to see, but afraid of being discovered by all those prisoners. I have heard stories about how lonely prisons get. I don't want to think of what they will do to me, if they catch me. I ride to the highway, then just stand up on the pedals and start to go as fast as I can. The poor bike groans and squeaks under me, as I push it harder than I have yet. I pick up speed and am cruising along. The bike bounces along on the road, following the middle of it as best as I can. I pass into the area, then see the sign on the side of the road saying I have just left the prison area. Unfortunately, the sign is facing backwards, because I am on the wrong side of the highway. This means I am just entering that area. I shift up to go faster, and it becomes harder to peddle, but I do increase speed. As I speed through the area, I imagine every scenario in my head, should I get caught. They all end badly for me. 

I ride for a long time, until I see the sign pass telling me I am entering the prison area, to not stop and pick up riders. I don't need to be told twice. I keep going until it gets so dark I can't see anything at all. I slow to a stop, getting off to walk the bike along, when I see a few glowing lights. They are dim, not bright at all, but definitely there, to my right. I stop, trying to figure out what they are, then realize, they are the ends of cigarettes. I get a cold wet feeling down my spine. They must be prisoners, walking toward Blythe. They are off to the side of the other side of the highway. They must be coming to try to follow the road, like I am, only on foot. it makes sense they would walk at night, since they would be cooler, but having been locked up all this time, they probably don't know just how dangerous the zombies can be. I mean, their experience must be pretty limited, being solely inside the walls of the prison. They may not have seen just how fast some are, or how many, or how they can hide in the numerous wrecks, or migrate in the large herds. If so, I would think, they would stay in the prison where it would be safer.

I get back on my bike. With its squeaky handlebars, if they get much closer, they will hear me, and that will be that. I risk it, riding in the pitch black, figuring it is better to hope someone up there is looking out for me, than to risk them stumbling over me. So I ride as fast as I can, and try to put distance between us. I ride like never before, until my legs simply refuse to go on. I don't stop until I actually see the glow of lights ahead. I see several parked large trucks. They are in some kind of parking area, and there is a office there. I just pass it by, going as fast as I dare, and I can hear the sounds of zombies from where the trucks are all parked. I have no idea what is going on there, and don't wait around to find out. I just finally drop, legs like rubber, when I see lights from some housing off to the right side of the highway. Fearing there will be zombies milling about, I pull up and push my bike well off the road to the North, away from the housing area. I discover there is a semi paved area so I park my bike there and sit down. I am in so much pain I can't begin to describe it, but I know it was necessary. Even if those prisoners ran all night and all day, they would not be able to cover the distance before I am gone. Hopefully, now with the sun coming up, they will find somewhere to rest, waiting out the heat of the day. I decide to just sit here, dumping a bottle of water over my head, and drinking a bit more. I am going to just sit here, on this gravel road, letting my legs recover. If this map is correct, this should be the very edge of Blythe. Well, when I say edge, I mean the edge of anything named Blythe. There should be an airport just ahead to my left, after the big gas station. Then there will be a lot of fields I guess, according to the map. Apparently Blythe is a really large farming community. Farms mean food. Farms mean water supply. Farms also mean a lot of very sharp things, and shotguns, according to video games. As small as I am, I doubt I will get along well with shotguns. I have seen videos on YouTube of girls my size being knocked about shooting them. I will stick to this gun the guard game me. After I have rested my legs, I will try to make it close enough to the gas station to see if they have WiFi. If so, I will try to make contact with Tammy and the boys. With zombies likely to the South, in the housing, and prisoners coming from the West, I have to keep moving. I swear, this is the worst zombie apocalypse ever! OK, so its the only one, but seriously, I am always being chased! At least now, I have a big gun to shoot back.


	9. Chapter 9

The time spent resting feels so good, though it is starting to get very warm out. I walk my bike up the dirt path, away from the housing community, until I come to what looks like some kind of shipping company. There are a lot of large trucks around as well as at least three dozen zombies. I realize I could kill them, if I take my time, but I am not sure it would be the wisest thing to do, considering my limited amount of bullets. To my right, I can see the roof tops of the little truck stop like place that I am currently also avoiding. There are just as many zombies meandering about there, though they seem less energized. I'm not sure what it is about this shipping place, perhaps there is some form of food here. I would bother to investigate, but I have other priorities.

I sneak along between the two, taking care to cross the little road without being seen. To another human, I would be painfully obvious, but fortunately, the zombies do not have good vision. As long as I stay kind of hunched over, and do not move fast, they do not seem to identify me as potential food. So I scoot along until I get t another large empty field. I can cross this quickly, pushing, now problematic, bicycle along. I had hoped that a fairly new bicycle would hold up better than a couple days of hard use, but it was likely cheaply made, designed just for occasional light use, and what I am using it for is well outside what the bike was ever intended for. Oh well, I will just find another. It is not like there are no more bicycles laying about. 

I arrive at a small group of buildings by the little airport runway. This is where I was headed. We had agreed that this would be the best spot to head to, at first. The reasoning was, it is fairly open, so that means there is really nothing to draw zombies to it. There would be at least some chance of finding food and drinks at the buildings, so we would have the means to replenish our supplies. With luck, Tammy might find a working vehicle that we could use. Finally, we half hoped that maybe the military might see a distress sign we planned to make on the runway saying "Help, survivors."

Arriving finally, I get to what appears to be the main building they used. It sits near a large hanger. I prop my bicycle up against it, taking my big gun with me to explore. Surprisingly, there are no zombies walking around, though there are several cars parked here. I look around back of the building, to see if there is a window I can pop open and go inside, so I don't destroy the front door. I notice there is a pile of burned bodies in a small field there. It appears someone took the time to not only kill the zombies, but disposed of them too. How kind of them. I don't see any open windows, so i walk over to the hanger. The view inside is both encouraging, and disheartening.

There was a group of survivors here. I can see bulletin boards with names, among them, Tammy, Gary and James. I can see stacks of military equipment, along with some maps and the garbage left behind from their stay here. On one wall, I see photos of people and messages. That reminds me, I need to check for WiFi. As I go through the military supplies, I do discover one of their backpacks. It is very large, and it takes me quite some time to figure out how to adjust the straps enough to use it. This is far larger than my little school bookbag. I transfer my few items, to it, then realize, I am nearly out of umm... bathroom items. That will need to be dealt with. Speaking of...

Fortunately, they did keep the bathrooms clean, which was nice. It felt good to be able to go, without worrying about being caught, literally, with my pants down. That dealt with, I wander around the hanger, when I notice the message painted on the side of the hanger. It has the date two days ago. It says "U.S. Marines. This evacuation site cleared. Evacuees to be placed at Green Zone. Next evacuation site, Medical Facility, Apache Reservation, San Carlos" followed by a date four months from now. I seem to have four months to get to that evacuation site, or I will be stuck in Arizona. OK, so all I have to do is cross the entire state of Arizona, in four months, find a medical facility on the Apache Reservation, and then wait for rescue. Seems straight forward enough. This also confirms what we all thought back at school, remote spots like a reservation, would be likely spots for survivors.

I find a couple of canteens among the supplies left behind, so I take those, fill them at the fountain, then put them in the outer pouches of the new pack. This thing is not quite what I would call comfortable, but it really is not nearly so bad on my back as the bookbag. It has this adjustable frame that keeps the stuff inside from poking me in the back. That is SUCH a relief. I walk back to my bicycle and get my iPad out of my travel bag. I get WiFi reception, and discover a reply to my message.

"Ellie, thank God you're alive! We honestly though you were dead. We arrived at the airport like we planned. The Army was already here, preparing to leave. They took us with them, and we are heading to some place in Colorado, but none of us are sure exactly where. If you get this, they are going back for more survivors, somewhere East of you, its quite a ways, but you should have time to get there. We believe in you. Good luck. Oh, James left you a GoPro one of the survivors was using to document their escape. It should upload everything you see and do to the internet, provided you get WiFi and follow the directions. We will be with you, like that, in your journey. Please be careful, be safe, and may God watch over you. We love you girl, get to the evacuation site, we will be waiting for you!"

Great, now my sure demise can be uploaded and viewed by the world. I write out a reply, before going to look for the GoPro. "I am glad you all are safe. Wish I had one of the horses, I found a bicycle, but it is about to break. I will find the GoPro and film my progress as I go. Thank you for everything so far, many of the things you have taught us along the way have saved my life more than a few times. I can't stay here long, there are a bunch of escaped prisoners from a prison following me. I will keep moving, hopefully getting to the evacuation site in time. Love, Ellie." I hit send, then put the iPad and my food and drinks and clothes into my new pack. This reduces the stress on my bicycle, but makes my pack heavy. I am wondering if I should paint over the message about the next evacuation site, so the prisoners don't find out, and possibly hurt someone, but that doesn't seem right to me. Sure they might be prisoners, but who knows why. Maybe some were just caught for reasons that are not violent or dangerous. They deserve the same chance to live that I do. It will just be a race then, I am sure they will steal a car, first chance they get, so i will have to be as fast as I can. Besides, from what I have seen, the odds of them being able to drive a car through the big cities between here, and the next evacuation site, look pretty slim at best. They might end up on food, like me, and that will even the odds considerably. I will be ready with another bicycle, my pack, and be used to that kind of travel. They will be looking for packs, and bicycles or something, as well as learning how to survive in this zombie apocalypse.

I suppose there are good things to surviving the zombie apocalypse. I will be in great shape by the time I arrive. Favorite Things About The Apocalypse, Number One: I get plenty of exercise. I grin as I open a bag of granola. Ah, Favorite Things About The Apocalypse, Number Two: Snacks are free. Oh, Favorite Things About The Apocalypse, Number Three: I have my friends.

It takes me a little searching before I see the school hoodie Tammy left behind, wrapped around a bag. It has the GoPro, as well as a note from James. I won't tell you what it said, but Favorite Things About The Apocalypse, Number Four: James.

I push my bike to the South a bit, toward a building that looks promising. They have taken some time to put up some barricades around it. I can see the ground is dark from many zombies killed. They put up a makeshift gate, made from a bus. I can't get past it, but I can climb over the barricades with some effort. Inside is a police station. It is small, and looks to be mostly cleaned out. All of the guns are gone, but I do find a couple boxes of bullets for my small pistol and the big gun. I find nothing for the revolver, which does not surprise me. I take the bullets, and a better map, and go back to my bike. It feels a little strange to be wearing this camera headset as I walk, but what the hell, it's not like I have to worry who sees me. It is starting to get dark, and I am so tired. I didn't sleep at all last night, and have been going on pure determination. I ride my bicycle along the road, passing a few places that look reasonably safe. There is a veterinary clinic not too far from me. I want to get there, maybe curl up in that building to sleep. It will have some medical supplies, I hope. I can at least get some stuff for bandages, some antiseptic, maybe even pain killers or something for my aching legs.

The few houses I see along the way look to have been over run by zombies, so I don't stop. Finally I get to the field and cross it, in the dark. I can barely see, but I find the clinic, bust out a window, and crawl inside. The animals inside are dead. I am not surprised. It has been a long time, they were trapped in cages, no food or water. I feel bad for them, though the smell of so many dead animals is hard to deal with. Thankfully, they are in the back area, so i scavenge the medical supplies I think will help me, then shut that area off, and sleep in the front office. It only takes me a few moments of laying on a sofa, before sleep takes me.

I decide to stay at the clinic the next day as well. It is very hot out, and my legs are still really sore. I take some Tylenol I find in the drawer of one of the office workers. After some time, I strip down, using the bathing area of the clinic, to wash myself. Sure, it was meant for washing the animals, but hey, we humans need some love too. It feels so good to sit there with the hot water running down my back and pulsing on my sore legs. I stay there until the water turns cold, then reluctantly dry off and dress, laying on the soft sofa for the rest of the day. That is when I hear the truck. Apparently the prisoners found a truck to steal, or someone did. I hear it drive by on the main road, heading toward Phoenix. I have no idea if they know about the evacuation site, or not, but I assume they do. It would not be unreasonable, for them to have arrived at the police station, to search for guns, then looted the airport, since it is nearby, and have discovered the evacuation site message. So, the race is on.

I sleep on the sofa again, feeling so much better today. Before leaving, I raid their snack machines, taking some more snack foods and a few more bottles of water. It is time to get going, the sun is just barely up, and I need to move on.

A few hours later find me passing a little housing community. I go through a field, till I get to a street called Cool Waters. Now that sounds inviting. The zombies here are few. It seems the pandemic hit here while people were at work, because I don't find many cars at the houses. There are only a few zombies here or there, mostly I can avoid them, a few I shoot before they see me. I bust out a few windows, looting through houses. I do manage to find a couple of those electric scooters. Score! After spending a couple hours charging them up, I take them both, slinging one around my shoulder, and riding on the other. My weary old bicycle has reached its final destination. I continue along, turning right on Shady Palm, then through a field, till I get back on the highway. I go left, headed to Phoenix, my scooter buzzing silently along. The wind through my hair feels nice, and it is so awesome to be buzzing along without having to pedal that clunky old bike. Favorite Things About The Apocalypse, Number Five: Free Scooters. The relative silent mobility I have, along with the speed, allows me to pass by some of the groups of zombies, making progress far easier than the noisy old bicycle. While I could go a bit faster at times, with the bicycle, it was exhausting after a while, and was getting harder and harder to keep going. This is so amazingly clever. I scoot past several accident sites, a few times even being chased a short ways by some of the zombies. They either lose interest as I out run them, or just lose sight of me, as I dodge around vehicles and debris. Ultimately, I make it through town, having to stop only to switch out scooters. I stop only to recharge and find a safe place to sleep, at a mobile home park on the outskirts of town. It is not really dark, only now getting to evening, but there really does not look to be an easier place to hide for the night until I hit the California/Arizona border. So I find the nearest mobile home, pop open the bathroom window, and slip inside. First thing is first, I put both scooters on the charger, then collapse on a soft bed, closing my eyes, just for a few minutes... and sleep the entire night. Favorite Things About The Apocalypse, Number Six: Finding a soft bed to sleep in.


	10. Chapter 10

Morning comes far too early. All night I heard the cries of the infected, echoing from the highway. A herd moved through during the night, headed West. I discovered that there had been some survivors in the housing section to the South of me. During the night, I heard the screams, then gun shots. More screams followed, then the inevitable silence. It always ends the same way. Screams, gun shots, then silence... always the silence. By the time dawn broke, the herd had moved on, leaving the odd straggler. A few times I would hear one scurry past, sniffing at the doors and windows. The only real way to defeat them is to leave some rotting food laying by any door or window. They don't seem to be able to smell me beyond the rotting meat or spoiled milk. I suppose it is like a dog, it fouls their scent glands, and they move on. As exhausted as I am, I don't get the sleep I wanted. While I can sleep through the night, I get woke from time to time, and often it is restless sleep.

Apparently when the disease or infection, or whatever it was, swept through here, cars were trying to get past the border control point. Once the sun is up enough to see, I leave the relative safety of the trailer, carrying my stuff in the heavy pack, until I get to the line of abandoned cars. The inmates drove past them, and it doesn't seem they have been picked over too badly. Whoever it was, last night, that died, must have been scouring the area pretty good. I do find some warm cans of soda, which I leave to whomever may come after me. I have enough water and drinks to hold me through until my next stop. I decide to carry my scooters and just walk the last stretch into Arizona. It is still just cool enough out, that I can enjoy the walk.

The bridge over the Colorado River is long and fairly empty. This makes me nervous. I have started to understand how the hunted animal feels. I know the hunters are still active in the day time. They seem to prefer to hunt at night, and are somewhat lethargic in the day, but no less dangerous. I prefer to have places to run, to hide. This wide open stretch of highway scares me, but it seems harmless at the moment, so I will take the chance to cross it. I pull my hair back out of my face, putting on some sunglasses I found in the house I slept in, and adjust the big gun, trying to get into the long walk. Then I hear it.

"Hey... hey wait, stop!" I hear from a ways behind me. I turn to see a man jogging to catch up. He is wearing a large hikers pack, complete with what seems to be a rubber mattress rolled up and tied to the top. I can see he carries a longer gun, from this distance I can't tell what kind, but if he wanted to kill me, he could have already.

I sip from a water bottle, lowering the barrel of the big gun a bit when he gets close enough to realize I have it. I can see a look of shock on his face. I suppose a girl with a machine gun might be a big shocking, but this is the zombie apocalypse. Anything goes, now. Favorite Things About The Apocalypse, Number Seven: Having a machine gun.

"Wow, you're a lot younger than I.... it's still good to see someone still alive. Where are you headed?" he asks in what I can only describe as a beautifully gravely voice. It fits him well. He appears to be middle aged, maybe a bit on the older side. His graying hair is balding, but looks nice on him. He is unshaven, which does not surprise me. Wasting water on shaving, not something I would do. He seems to be carrying a shotgun, because the bullets on the stock of it are red plastic. He looks down at my gun and does a double take. "Holy shit, where did you get an MP5?" he asks. I look down at the gun. I guess it is an MP5. OK, that's nice to know.

"I met a cop, he was dying. he gave it to me." I say trying to explain. The man seems to accept that, then after catching his breath, he again asks. "So, you headed somewhere?"

"Evacuation site. I have four months to get there." I say pointing in entirely the wrong direction. "They will be coming for more survivors at the Apache Reservation, somewhere East of here.

He smiles, moving my arm to the right direction. "In that case, you might want to go the right way. You mind if I come with you?" he asks. I can't see the harm in having someone stronger than me, come with me. I may need the help. I nod, smiling a bit, and we turn to head to the evacuation site. Thankfully he isn't much of a talker. 

"I'm Ellie." I say as we go. He doesn't answer right away, instead he looks around, scanning the distance. 

"My name is Scott. Glad to meet you Ellie. I'm kind of surprised you survived the night. That herd was pretty large." he says, and I realize he was thinking of what he wanted to say. Apparently Scott is the kind of man that measures what he intends to say. That is a good thing, I think.

"It isn't the first I've been through. I'm sure it won't be the last. There is a lot of ground to cover between here and the evacuation site." I reply, seeing a little movement off to the right. He caught it too, crossing to the left side of the bridge with me. The bridge is several car lanes wide, so we are able to put some distance between ourselves and the movement. The next few minutes pass slowly, with us closing the distance, now coming into view of a group of five of the regular looking zombies, huddled up in the shade of an over turned car. We both sneak along, quietly making it past them, not wanting to gain their attention. My hands are on the MP5, his pull his shotgun off his shoulder. We are ready, just in case, but neither of us want to fight. The noise of that shotgun would definitely attract any others to us, and we are so in the open right now, that it would be a slaughter. As we pass by, we can see several more along the Southern side of the highway just hanging out around a row of cars. One appears to have been a large truck hauling cattle. The cattle are now all dead, but the blood and remains are still spread all over, and the zombies seem to be at peace laying among the disgusting stench. The wind is starting up, and he seems to be aware that they can track by scent as well as I am. He nods agreement as we head North, from the end of the bridge, toward a mobile home park. 

Once we are half way across a field, he whispers "this RV park is mostly empty in the summer. Chances are, we will not find any, or if we do, no more than one or two." I am glad to have him with me, he seems to know the area. "Just beyond, there is a place that rents ATV's. We should try to get one. We can try to cross the desert with one." I nod. That sounds like a great idea to me. The map I have shows a lot of empty desert, and I really had not felt like crossing it was going to be do-able. However, this is the apocalypse, and sometimes you don't do what you want, you do what you must.

The trailer park seems deserted, but we can both smell the distinctive smell of rot. There may be one or two of them locked up in one of the houses. The sun is higher now, and the heat is starting up. The dust from our walking along the semi-paved road, starts to hang in the air. I can smell his sweat as we go, and I am sure he can smell mine. If I can smell us, I am sure the zombies can. Our best hope is that the wind stays calm. He grabs my arm after a couple streets, and guides me to a golf cart. The last time I rode in one, James was driving. As he unplugs it, and checks to make sure it will run, my mind goes back to that day. We had just stole water from the hotel, when all hell broke loose. He was there for me. He has always been there for me, since this all started. I miss him. I hope they are safe up in Colorado. I can't wait to join them. I hope I survive.

Scott gets the golf cart ready, rolling it away from the house before trying it out. As I get in, he finally asks me about the camera I'm wearing. "OK, Ellie, what's with the camera?" he says half laughing. 

"Well, my friends left it to me. When we get to places with WiFi, I can upload the video of my journey. They can see the progress I make." I say looking around as he starts to drive the golf cart.

"So, you're telling me you have a phone that works?" he seems surprised. "They all went dead after the... well outbreak, I guess."

"Yes, they did, but most phones will automatically disconnect after a while. The phone system itself is designed to do that, at least according to what James said. And the internet is not the same as the phone system. It is always on." He nods, as he thinks about it. "So when we pass a WiFi hotspot, I can upload the video, and they can track my progress. Maybe they can learn something about the zombies, from what I see and experience."

"That is pretty clever. So you mean there are more survivors out there?" he seems relieved.

"You didn't think it was only you and me, did you?"

"I was starting to, yes. Do you know how bad it is?"

"Well, the information we got so far, it seems to be fairly bad here in the US, as well as Canada, Mexico, Japan, Hawaii, and the Middle East. Europe seems to be doing better, and that means there is a chance that if we can get to safety, we can maybe escape this." I say closing my eyes a bit, as the breeze from our driving feels really good. We are leaving the trailer park when he turns left sharply, and stops by a large swimming pool. We both smile as we get out, climbing over the fence, to dip into the water enough to get nice and wet. It feels so good, and we climb back over, to keep moving, feeling 100% better.

Upon arriving at the ATV rental place, Scott stops short, giving me the "stay silent" gesture, with his finger on his lips. I not, taking the silencer thing out of it's pouch and screwing it on the MP5. He sees me do that and his jaw just hangs there. He seems absolutely shocked by this. I shrug, giving him the "What?" look. He shakes his head smiling, and we sneak to the side of the ATV building. We can both hear noise from inside. This is not the sound of zombies, it is the sound of someone working on a vehicle or machine. We can hear the sound of wrenches being dropped and grunts of men moving heavy things. He motions for me to stay back, so I let him go ahead a bit, and he peeks around the corner, under the barely opened rolling door. He looks back at me shaking his head NO. This is not good. I don't know what he saw in there, but he looks pale, and hurries me back to the golf cart. He turns us around and we head East, across a dirt field as fast as we can. Finally I have to know.

"What the hell?" I ask. He shakes his head No. That isn't good enough for me. I need to know what we are facing.

Finally he gives in. "Cannibals. They were cannibals. I saw them... we are better off without trying to deal with that."

"Cannibals? Why the hell would someone do that? With all the damn zombies out there, why the hell would someone want to be just like them?" I can't even wrap my head around that. Why on Earth would someone turn to eating other people, when there are other ways to get food? To me, that just seems like, there must have been something deeply wrong in their brains, that they would turn to that, given the chance.

"I have no fucking idea... sorry, I mean, no idea. I was afraid of that, I had seen a few bodies laying around, not killed by the zombies, and not eaten by them either. They were carefully cut up." he says sounding disgusted. "I'm sorry, but it looks like we will be going as far as this thing can go, then on foot after."

As far as the golf cart can go, turns out to be no more than a mile or so, before it dies. The motor seems to want to keep going, but the suspension is broken beyond any hope of going farther. The desert is hard on vehicles. The ground is mostly hard packed, with lots of small stones. It is not level at all, it is cracked and broken, constantly forcing a vehicle to adjust. We abandon it in the desert, and he takes out a compass and we begin to walk East. It is a very hard walk, the land rises and falls, hills and valleys. That is what makes crossing the desert so hard. It will tire you out. You are either climbing, or making your way down a slope, but you are always using muscles you do not normally use.

We finally come to what seems to be a rest stop, as we make our way back to the highway. There is the stench of death everywhere, and it is fairly recent. I imagine the herd last night came through here, and wiped out whoever was trying to hide here. It really isn't much to see. It's mostly just a brick building with a couple bathrooms, and some picnic tables. We can see where they circled some big trailers, the kind that big trucks pull, into a circle around the rest stop. They pushed them together pretty tight, and it seems like that held out for a while. There are a pile of dead zombies by one side, and that is probably how they got in. They just ran at it, as they were mowed down, until they could walk up the pile of their own dead, and get in. Scott crawls between two of the trailers, checking out the inside. I walk over to the bathrooms, and look for a water fountain. Then I hear it. From inside a bathroom, crying.

I ready my MP5, making sure it is able to shoot, if necessary, then try to open the door. It is a heavy steel door, the kind they use to make sure if somewhere is locked up, that nobody can get in anyhow. I tug on it a few times but it won't open. I hear the crying stop, and a yelp from inside. "Hey, if you're OK, my friend and I are going to be leaving soon, you're welcome to join us." I say loud enough to be heard inside. I wait a few minutes, then shrug. "OK, if you don't want to go, good luck. We are going now." I say and refill my water bottles with the water fountain. I hear the sliding bolts on the door move and a boy, maybe 15, pokes his head out. He looks terrified. I suppose I would be too. If he was in here, hearing his friends and family being slaughtered, he is probably really freaked out.

"No, don't leave without me." he says half crying. By now, Scott is returning, and sees me talking to a boy. He stops and tells the boy to get down, then proceeds to check him for bites. Once satisfied, he lets him up. "So, who is this?" he asks. I shrug. I have no idea yet.

"I'm Chris. My... family... we were traveling with some others. We thought we could be safe out here, in the middle of nowhere. I was going to the bathroom, when they came. I didn't know what to do, so I locked the door and stayed in the back of the bathroom. Oh, God, it was terrible." he says crying again. Scott nods to me, confirming that it had to be pretty gruesome in the circle of trailers. "She said I could come with you." he says searching Scott's face for mercy. For the moment, I am actually unsure Scott will allow him to come, but after thinking it over a bit, he finally relents.

"Well, you'll have to get together your own gear, we are not going to carry your stuff for you." Scott says. Chris nods, and looks over at the bloody trailers. "Is it safe?"

I shrug, not knowing, but Scott nods, and goes with him, motioning for me to stay behind. I don't listen and follow after they go inside, peeking around the trailers, to see the dead smeared all over. Inside was a few tents, now all torn to hell. Together, Scott and Chris find him a backpack, and scavenge a rifle and pistol, and surprisingly, some bullets for both. Apparently they went down fighting. Both are very shaken by what they do, as am I. As they are getting their stuff together, I notice I have WiFi, so I upload the video so far, and notice that the web page is getting messages from other places. Apparently, there are groups of survivors across Europe, cheering me on, in my journey. I read several well wishes, and prayers. I can't read them all, before they both return. We have to go. It is getting to afternoon, and we have a lot of ground to cover. Favorite Things About The Apocalypse, Number Eight: The hopes and prayers of people everywhere, that we will survive.

Scott leads the way East. Chris and I follow, both trusting this man with our lives. In an insane world, trusting a stranger is the most sane decision we can make. Scott seems OK with having us tag along, and Chris seems relieved to be with someone, anyone else. As for me, I just want to get back to James and my friends. It's funny, somewhere, it stopped being Tammy and the boys, and in my head, and heart, it's now James and my friends.


	11. Chapter 11

I crouch down farther behind the counter of the pizza shop. Just on the other side, Chris lays bleeding out. Five more shots echo and I see another one impact him in the ribs. He stops screaming and lays very still. I am experienced enough to know death when I see it. Three days ago, he was hiding in a toilet, crying in terror. I just got to know him, started to feel like I had someone I could talk to, but now he lays dead just a foot away. Scott tosses a piece of wood my way, to get my attention. He is out of ammunition. I nod, I am nearly out too. There were eleven of them, but we managed to kill all but the three that are now shooting down at our position. I try to peek up over the counter, to see if I can even see the roof of the building across the street, but I can't. All I do is draw more fire from the guy behind the fence in front of the building. He seems to empty his gun, so I poke my MP5 around and fire one or two bullets. I don't hear anything in return, so I probably missed.

They found us walking through Quartzite just a few hours ago, but already they are hurting just as bad as we are. I don't know why they just started shooting, we were not bothering them. Scott even shouted at them when they first fired, that we were friendly. They shot him in the shoulder, and then hit my backpack, destroying one of the scooters. I crawled away, behind a trailer, and Chris grabbed me and helped me along until we found Silly Al's Pizza. I ran to look for a back door, and Chris turned to help Scott in. That is when he got shot. Scott returned fire, and I came back to the lobby and also started to shoot back. Then, well, you know.

Scott makes a break for the counter, as he dives, the guy behind the fence shoots him in the back. He falls next to me, already dead. I lean back against the counter, terrified. I never in a million years, thought I would someday be in a shootout in Quartzite Arizona. I want to just curl up and cry, I want my mom. I wish daddy was here to make them stop. I can't just quit though. This is happening. I don't hear anything for a bit, and I figure I should play dead for a bit too. Outside I hear the cries of the dead. For the first time, I am glad to have them arrive. The killers start shooting, and I hear the dead swarm at them, screams of hunger and rage, and of terror and pain. I don't waste the opportunity, I make my way to the back of the building, sliding open a window, and slipping out back. I can hear the zombies in a feeding frenzy, and I remember what that was like. I wish I could say I am brave and clear minded, but I am not. A primal terror, not just fear, absolute terror, grips me and I find myself running. This is not the run you do when you want to just run away, this is the run where you lean so far forward, trying to go faster, that you really can reach out and touch the ground. I am running like I have never run before. I don't know where, I don't care.

I run down the South side of Main Street, I can hear the withering gunfire from the zombies and killers behind me. They would easily see me running, since Main Street is fairly straight, and there is absolutely nothing to hide behind. By the time I come to the first intersection, I am so light headed, and mindlessly just in panic mode, I do not remember turning and running North. I do not stop until I can no longer hear the shooting. I do not know if it is because of how far I ran, or because the shooting stopped, but I finally slow and fall to my knees at a open intersection. There is nothing but desert to my right, some scattered housing to my left. I am nearly out of bullets, so I can't afford to risk the housing. I push myself back to my feet, legs rubbery and protesting with much pain. I stagger on, limping and half falling until I come to a brown building.

I push myself to at least make it to the building. I can't go any farther. I fall against the doors, having to fumble with the handle until I can turn it and force the doors open enough to get inside. It was half barricaded, like whoever was trying had started, but other than a few light tables and desk chairs, failed to finish the job. The fact I could push my way in is proof of that. I push the doors closed and slide down the wall until I am hugging my knees. My legs are like jelly, except they are burning, and I can barely breath. Again, outside, I can hear the truck the killers were in, driving down the street. I realize they are coming here, when they stop in the parking lot outside. How the hell did they find me?

I look for somewhere to hide, but I can not find anywhere that would really hide me. Then I remember what James showed me, and I look up, at the dropped ceiling. I climb up onto the tables pushed against the doors, and push a ceiling panel aside, then jump up pulling myself up into the ceiling. I push the panel back into place as the killers enter through another set of doors. I roll onto my side, trying to catch my breath and hoping I don't pee myself. I can hear two of them talking. 

"Whoever they were, it's just you and me now, grab some ammo, and lets get the hell out of here. This town is over run." one says. His voice is pained, as if he is hurt. I want to lift the panel and look, but I am too afraid to move. I fear even my breathing is too loud, and any second they will just shoot me through the foam panels.

"No, Bob, it isn't just you and me. You got bit, it's just me." The other guy, the one that started all of this, says and shoots his friend. I hear the other guy scream, then another gun shoots. After a few minutes, I only hear the screams of the zombies outside. They heard noises, but now are unable to locate the source. I recite all the prayers I can remember, including making up a few and probably mangling a few more. 

I wait an hour at least, or maybe just a few minutes that feel like an hour. Finally I lift the panel to see both of them laying dead. Good job Bob. I lower myself down, as silently as I can. I wish I knew how to drive, I would steal their truck and get to the evacuation site as fast as possible. Unfortunately, I discovered that driving is not as easy as it seems in video games. I discover that this is a police station. OK, that explains why they came here. Like the guy said when asked why he robbed banks, because that is where the money is. In the zombie apocalypse, if you want guns, you go to where the guns are. That would be the police armory. It is getting late afternoon, early evening, so I have very little time, but I am weary and feel hungry, so I know I will not be going far. The killers were right, this town is seriously infested. I do not want to risk picking through it after dark. I pull a rifle off the dead leader guy. It says "Property OF U.S. Govt. M4A1" I remember these from DayZ. I know it takes .223. I had to scavenge that ammo in the game constantly. I take the magazines from his jacket and put them in the pockets of my hoodie. They are heavy and make my jacket pull at my neck. I will have to find a better solution when I am clear of this place, but first, I roll him over and pull five boxes of bullets for the rifle out of his pack. I pull off my pack, stuffing them into it, then adding two of the magazines from my hoodie. That makes it easier on my poor jacket.

I add two bottles of water, then find some granola bars in the other guys pockets, that seem OK. It is time to get going. I leave the dead laying there, then pull open the doors I came in through. I am right, it is getting a bit dark. I check my iPad, it is actually later evening than I thought. Days seem to last longer in the desert. This is likely because it is so open. I push it back into its case, noticing I am getting a WiFi signal. Well, isn't that something? I go to the left, away from the housing, and see a bunch of school buses. I turn to the left and head toward the closest building to me. It is a school classroom. I can hardly stand the smell. Inside was a slaughter house. The walls are covered in blood, with pieces of rotting flesh just thrown all over. It would look like a bomb went off, if the building was not so intact. I walk past the offices, and see it gets no better. The carnage here is beyond words to describe. I find myself shivering, that same deep terror gripping me. I remember this from my school. I briefly wonder if schools became nothing but slaughter houses for the zombies. I try to do the mental arithmetic. This all seemed to start, according to the news James was able to find, in the afternoon, and California is ahead of Arizona by an hour, so it may have hit just before they let out. If so, they had no chance. These teachers and kids had no chance at all. I want to leave this place, to run far away, but I have to find a place to sleep. To be safe at night, I need to have a place so overpoweringly bad that the zombies won't be able to smell me. This place fits the bill. I pull a desk over to the door of the classroom I hide in, and make sure if that door starts to open, the sound of that desk sliding will wake me up.

I pull out my iPad, then connect to the school web site. I can see some encouraging messages from all over, waiting for me. James says he and Gary and Tammy are all safely in Colorado. They started school there, and in the afternoons also learn to shoot and stuff. Good for them. According to one message, the UN is calling for some kind of evacuation plan for survivors, but at this point, they are unsure how to do it. Any rescue would require ships as large as aircraft carriers, and so far, the U.S. Navy is not responding to anyone. They don't seem to think anyone else has any ships large enough, but they are working on that.

I upload the video from my GoPro. As it does, I fall asleep, so I don't see just how shocking it is to the rest of the world. They are seeing the first raw footage of the zombie apocalypse, from America. Apparently other countries that have been hit, have not uploaded any footage. For now, it seems, I am the sole source of video footage. Someone labels my videos "The Real Life Hunger Games" and before long it has more views than any other video I can remember.

I have to sleep though, which I do, so I don't find out until morning, but by then, I have bigger problems to think about. Namely, I am once again, alone, lost, and wondering just what the hell to do. The only bright side is, James sends me a detailed map of how to get to the evacuation site. As long as I go where the big star is, I will be there when they arrive, if I can get there in time, or at all.


	12. Chapter 12

The next morning brings new terrors. I am almost getting used to being afraid all the time. Awake I feel the constant terror of being hunted, and by night my dreams bring me creative new terrors of being caught and killed, over and over. I wonder if there is a point when being afraid for so long, it is easier to just stop feeling. If so, I want to get there. I would rather feel nothing, than be afraid all the time. I am so tired of the pain, the fear. I both envy James and my friends, and hate them for leaving me behind. It's just not fair. I deserved to be among them, safe and away from all this death. I never want to smell this smell, feel these feelings, and cry myself to sleep every night. Even waking up is terrifying. The sudden pounding on the door rips me from sleep. I have no idea what it is, but whatever it is, I want no part of it.

I scramble up into the ceiling, crawling quickly to the far wall, then along it towards what I think was the doorway I came in, when I first entered this building. As I do, I hear the door burst in, pieces embed themselves into the wall or go flying. SO great was the force, that the wall is damaged with the handle breaking a hole into it. The frame is completely destroyed around the handle and lock. Then the ever present sound and smell of death. They enter in a rage, throwing the desks about, searching for anything they can kill, can devour. They search for me.

It only takes them a few moments before they can smell the sweaty remains I left near the back, and follow the trail of my sweat soaked path, up into the ceiling. This seems to confuse them, which I am thankful for, but does not stop them. They spread out, searching room to room, desperate to feed on my flesh. I have to crawl over cooling ducts and past electrical relays, until I make it to the hard wall of the school. I pull a panel aside and peek down, the main foyer is guarded by three. I am going to have to fight my way out, I can't stay up here long, the longer I stay, the hotter I get, and the more I sweat and the more I smell, which seems to draw them, like wolves. I pull up the MP5, aiming through the sight, then pull the trigger, destroying the face of the closest one. The other two are close enough, they definitely hear it, but are unsure where it came from. I sight in on the next, then fire. He drops, whimpering, half his head gone, but somehow still flopping around like a dying fish. So long as he is dying, is all I care. The third one realizes where I am, but I fire again, hitting it in the throat, by accident. I was aiming for its head. It stops its advance for a moment, unable to breath, or howl for others. I fire again, dropping it, then also climbing quickly down.

It is past time to go. I slip out the doors, seeing several more in the parking lot. This was a herd. I thought it was just a few randoms, but it was dozens. I have no chance if I fight them. I duck behind a car and pull the remaining scooter from my pack out, then set it up. The battery is still holding most of its charge, that is good. I get on it, squatting down, as I pull the grip to power it up. I start to roll along, squatting down on it, riding in this most unusual pose, down the parking area, onto the street, where I turn and speed off. Behind me the outer edge of the herd see me speeding off and yell an alert to the others, but I think I have enough distance, I can out run them.

I have to turn to dodge around several car wrecks, going through some debris, until I am back on more clear pavement. Ahead, I see a lot of them pouring through a hole in a fence, exiting a housing area. I am cut off that direction, and am forced to stop. I grab up the scooter and just start to run across the field to my right. Any hopes I had of just out distancing myself from them is out the window. Now, running through the desert is not nearly as easy as it seems. The ground is broken, with a lot of thorny plants everywhere. Fortunately, I can run pretty good, I got picked on by bullies a lot, so I am used to running away. Who could have ever known, running from bullies would one day save my life?

I am jumping over smaller cactus, and bushes, leaping over smaller washes and in my terror, just blindly running as fast as I can. Behind me I can hear them following, but they are less effective at it. For all their strength, all their speed, they are still dumber than we are, and have a harder time navigating difficult things. I get to another unpaved road, which does me no good, and would only help them, if I run down it. On a smoother surface, their speed would be to their advantage. The broken ground is my best advantage. I cross the road, then run directly into the next field, through and behind some larger trees and shrubs. I can hear them still behind me, but not gaining. Unfortunately, also, not falling much behind. I am not doing myself much of a favor here. Yes, for the time being, I am keeping them back there, but I am tiring out fast, and they will not. I turn to my left and head for open desert, at least from my current view. They might continue to run straight, since they really cant see me with all the shrubs and trees between us. With the light breeze, they also probably can no longer smell me. 

I run until I come to a paved road. Without a thought, I swing the scooter down and hop on, giving it the gas. In moments I am speeding off, faster than I could possibly run, and faster than they can too. I speed along, past more car wrecks, and the still smoldering site of some building that seems to have burned down at some point. More of them fill the road behind me which now seems like some disgusting comedy show. Dozens of them, stumbling along, down the road, chasing me on my scooter. If it wasn't so serious, it would be almost funny. I dare not stop to laugh, that would have deadly consequences. Instead, I run, like I always do. My life is nothing more than one horrific reason to run, followed by another. I nearly forget the GoPro is on my head, I am looking back and forth so much, it must be terrible for whoever would be watching. My life has become a reality show, with me as the prey, hunting by the rest of the world. I guess I just hope I don't get cancelled before season 2, when I get the hell out of here!

I roll along for miles. The herd is now long behind me, likely turning on their own weak, hungry for food. It gives me time to pull over, and throw up. The fear and the disorientation of being lost and alone, all come up and I throw up until there is nothing left, but still my body heaves on. I lay on my side, crying in the dirt on the side of the road. I hate this place! I hate these zombies! I'm just tired. I want to just give in, let them have me. If it would mean no longer living in fear, I would gladly end it all. I sit up, hugging my knees rocking a little, trying to catch my breath. All it would take is one shot, just one shot from my pistol, and this could all be over. I pull it out, putting it in my mouth several times, but just can't bring myself to do it. James would be angry at me, the last thing in the world I would do would be to leave him behind. But they left me behind, so its only fair. I start to a few more times, trying to decide, do i end this here, or go on? Why do I even try? I am never going to make it to the evacuation site. I know that. I am all alone in the world of monsters, and I am never going to get out.

I just want to go back to my world. I want back to that place, without the horrors, without the monsters. I can't do this alone. Its just too much, and I feel so small in this world of terror. With all of these guns, and all of the blood, the smell, the constant running, I am so very tired. I am just so very tired. Maybe not here. Maybe I will do it somewhere else, but not here, in the middle of nowhere. I don't know anymore. I am thirsty, and hungry, and exhausted. It is getting very warm, and I have nowhere to be, so I just get back on the scooter, and ride until I come to an overpass.

I take shelter under it, next to a small car that apparently had the same idea. Inside I see the remains of three people. By the way they are all sitting as if they are at peace, I am thinking they had the same idea. They probably overdosed on something, and died, here, in a cheap Toyota, in the middle of nowhere. I feel nothing, not sadness, or fear, or revulsion. I think I am reaching that point of feeling nothing. I feel like a spectator in my own life. It is oddly like I am just watching a movie, as my body slides down the fender of the Toyota, my hands pulling a water bottle out of my pack. I drink it without tasting it, without feeling the relief of the water in my dry mouth. I rest against the car, without feeling the rest from sitting. I lay my head back, eyes closed, without feeling the tender embrace of sleep dangling just beyond me. I cry, without feeling the sting of tears on my cheeks, or the shuddering of my body as it comes in waves. What the hell am I doing out here? This is some sick joke, it has to be. I am way too young to be doing this. I can't even drive. What the hell am I doing trying to cross the country alone, on foot, with an army of zombies hunting me. What the hell can I hope to do?

It is a few hours later that I finally get back up. The sun is starting into the afternoon sky, and I must put some distance between myself and that herd. They may just come this direction. If they, or even a stray, were to find me here, I would be dead within moments. I have to go on, until I find some place I can sleep. I get back on the scooter, riding it for miles. I can see the meter telling me it is nearing its end of charge, and I will need to find some place to plug it in. It is a few hours later, having to dodge more wrecks, as well as some strays, which again, requires me to get off the road, run out into the desert, and skirt around. Finally, I see some buildings ahead. I use an emergency access break, to cross to the South side of the road, wanting to try that side of the road for a change. I ride until I see a large field, littered with old cars. This looks promising.

I get off, putting my now, very warm scooter, in my pack. After climbing down a small embankment, I hop a fence, then wander among some old cars. In the middle of the field of old cars, is a house. It seems vacant, so I creep close, not hearing anything from inside. My guess is, the herd I just escaped from, may have also been from here. The remains of people are still staining the ground, where victims were murdered. I don't hear anything alive though. I take a chance, and open a back window, listening as well as I can, to see if there may be some trapped inside. It stinks bad, which is always a sign that they were or are there. I decide not to go inside, but I do find an outside outlet. I plug the scooter into it, and it starts to charge. They have what appears to be an old bus, converted into some kind of RV, in the back yard. I stand on my tip toes and peek inside. There are no zombies or corpses in the RV. This is a welcome thing, but also risky. It means that my scent will build up in it, and it will be the only scent around. I would be wiser to crawl into the house and sleep in the stench of the dead, but I just can't deal with that right now. I need a break from all this death. I don't give a damn. I need some time away from the stench, and I am going to make my stand here. It is getting dark, and I am not going any farther today. I am staying right here, even if it kills me. Right now, I don't think I would even care if it did.


	13. Chapter 13

Entering Goodyear is a major miracle for me. Over the last three days, my scooter died, leaving me on foot. Walking the last dozen or two miles into the Phoenix Metro area, the sky started to fill with smoke and at night, the Eastern horizon would glow. While back in the mountains, it was not so visible, but once over the rim, entering the valley, it is the only thing I can really focus on. The air is thick with the smell of burning... everything. It smells of melted plastics, and wood, bodies, and other things, all burning out of control. I have to tie a scarf around my face to breath. Fortunately, I was able to scavenge something off a wreck cars baggage.

The myth around Phoenix, is that it is a fiery bird, that rises from the ashes of its own incinerated body, to fly up and wreak vengeance upon the world, or something like that. After it has satisfied its craving for whatever it does, it again, crashes down into the Earth and I guess burns up again. I admit, i am not too clear on that, it really never mattered to me before this, but, well, it is quite clear, Phoenix will never rise from its ashes this time. Even from here, I can see, the fires of Phoenix rage out of control, which I suppose is due to the fact, there is nobody left alive to even consider trying to fight the fire. I try to capture it on the GoPro but it takes me turning my head nearly side to side, to get the entire fire on camera. Yes, it is that big. There will be no going into Phoenix, itself. I will have to skirt around the city, but now that leaves me with more questions than answers. Just how far will I have to go, and will the fire spread farther, and drive me completely out, or will it catch me up, and burn me alive? There is no wind, other than the wind storm I can film at the heart of the fire. It seems like the inferno is creating its own weather, and at times I see fire tornadoes start up out of the black smoke, and whip debris around. Even from this distance, the inferno is like a real live Phoenix bird.

I decide, the easiest route might be to go North of Phoenix. I am farther North than I am South, so that might shave a few days off my travel time, and already i can see, my time is slipping away quicker than I thought. I might just barely make it to the evacuation site, at the pace I am going. I will need to step it up, but I am on foot now, and that is very bad. I am exhausted from carrying so much stuff, but to be fair, I need everything I have, to survive. I have already dumped the spare clothing, and empty bottles and well, anything that I didn't need. I even dropped the revolver, figuring, the automatic would be good enough. I nearly dropped the MP5, but it is very quiet. I wanted to drop the M4, but the sight on the top makes it so I can look ahead and see things clearer. I would take the sight off it and throw the gun itself away, but I am unsure how to separate it from the gun. It seems to need some tool I do not have, and likely could not identify if I had to.

The sheer amount of housing off the sides of the highway terrifies me. As I walk, rather hunched over, going from cars to places that might offer me some cover, to more cars, to more cover, I can hear the cries and other sounds the infected make. There must be thousands and thousands, maybe millions. I have no idea, though I doubt it is millions. I am sure it is more like tens of thousands. I know this much, it is far too many for me to survive. Alone, on foot, and as tired and weak as I feel, even one, right now, would be too many. It is so terribly hot. I should be concerned, I know, I don't really sweat much now. My lips are dry, my throat is filled with the taste of burning city, and I feel light headed, likely from the fumes. I need to get out of here, but I have to press on, forward, if I hope to get around this inferno.

The fire seems to have driven the infected away from Phoenix proper, into these suburbs. This seems to multiply them and make them seem more abundant than they might otherwise be. This also makes them dangerous. All it will take is for one of them to alert on me, and dozens, or more could come rushing for the feast. I walk until i can walk no more, keeping just enough left in me, to run away, somewhere, should I have to. I see a sign saying Gateway Pavilions. It is some kind of strip mall. I slide down a large canal side to the bottom, delighted to see it has some water on the bottom, however, the water is covered in a fine layer of ash, like everything, including me. I was going to splash some on me, to cool off, but when I touch it, I can feel, the water is hot, like everything that lays in the desert sun. I pass it by, walking up a conveniently placed ramp.

At the top, I can see another chain link fence. I have climbed so many of these since this all began, that I can't count them. This one, however gives me trouble. I am so weak, and ready to drop, I just fall on my back a few times, before I make it over. Skinned, dirty, sore and bleeding, I stumble to the back door of an Old Navy store. I make it up the loading dock, and after looking around to be sure there are no infected to hear or see me, I shoot the MP5 into the lock, and roll the metal door up. It is so heavy, it takes all my strength. I lower it slowly, looking around the dark empty backroom. This is when I discover, the power is out here. Chances are, the power is out everywhere, because of the fire. The power companies of the valley route their power through some central station or something, i am sure, though i don't know that, so don't quote me. Chances are, that was burned up, so there will be no power anywhere. It is stifling hot in here too. The large box store is now more of an oven, and I just put myself inside.

I find the cafeteria area, where the employees would put their food for breaks, but of course, any food here is long spoiled. I am too tired to really do much, and after seeing the clothes they offer, there is nothing here that would help with survival. It is all light weight summery stuff that would get ruined quickly. There do not seem to be any infected inside, though i do discover a few places where people were killed. I am not sure if they were eaten, or shot, then eaten. The pools of blood dried long ago, and the heat has caused the bodies to swell up and kinda explode, sorta. I throw up a lot, which only makes me light headed and weaker. I leave the store through the front doors, which are of course unlocked, since whatever happened, apparently happened while the store was open for business. I climb up on top of a blue garbage can, then jump up to grab a light fixture, using that to lift myself up to get up onto the bottom of the sign. I can lay in the shade here, and rest. Nothing is likely to find me up here.

I sleep until it is early the next morning. With the nearly eternal twilight of the smoke layer, it is hard to tell early from late. There are no visible stars, and the sky always seems darker. That helps with the temperature a little. I drink some of my warm water, eating the last of some dried snack bars, and then lean back against the sign, legs dangling off the end. There are a few infected in the parking lot, but not as many as I would have thought. In the distance, I actually hear shooting, and at times vehicle sounds. There are survivors, here in what I would describe as hell on Earth. Even here, there are survivors. I really would not have figured on that. I listen to them, seeing the closer sounds distract the infected to wander off, probably hoping for food, if what is left of their minds really thinks at all, or just goes on instinct. Either way, I drop down and walk to Best Buy. I need more batteries for the GoPro. it is nearly dead, and they might just have some. I keep the MP5 ready, and look inside. The electronic doors were already pushed open, and I can see, the place has been looted already. I walk, hunched over, to the center section, where they keep camera stuff. I manage to find several batteries, though they barely hold much charge themselves, but they can be charged, if I find a power source. 

Looting some other stores, I do manage to get a new pair of sneakers, which is great news. Mine were coming apart. I managed to get a few more aspirin and some surgical masks from a dental place, though it was not from their little pharmacy, it was from the corpse of one of the dead laying there. They had on a backpack, which had of course been looted, but in a small pocket on the side, I found a bottle with a few left. Other than that, the strip mall holds nothing for me, so I head East, walking carefully down the street. I notice a HUGE, and I mean it is HUGE car wash. The awnings offer some shade, and I can see water still leaking from the sprayers. They have water pressure, so i walk over and use one to at least wash myself off a bit, then sit on a low wall, resting my legs, and wondering what to do. The surgical mask makes breathing easier, though it is a bit warm. The wetness of this place feels so good, but as soon as I leave it, the ash will immediately cover me again. I am reluctant to leave, but I finally do, but only after getting very wet. I know this will make the ash cling to me, but since it covers everything, maybe being covered in it as well, I might be able to hide easier. The fumes also seem to confuse the infected. I notice that the infected are fewer, the closer into the fumes I go. I have no evidence, and it is only my guess, but I think it is because they hunt mostly by sight and smell, and sound. So if something like the fumes and the dull roar of the inferno make smell and sound difficult, they instinctively move away, to where they can hunt easier. Again, I don't know that, but it appears that way.

I walk along what I discover is a road named McDowell. It is mostly clear of wrecks, though to be sure, there are a lot of stopped cars. I can see, in some cases, it is like someone in the car suddenly turned infected and either wrecked the car, or attacked whoever was driving. That had to be terrifying to whoever was driving. Strapped into a car, with an infected, unable to stop fast enough to get out, and having them kill you. I don't want to die feeling myself being eaten alive. I keep walking until I get to a Circle K, and I stop there. It has been looted well, and the shelves are empty. I can see bullet holes in the walls, and there are bodies laying amid the shattered glass. Whatever happened here, it was done by survivors. The only reason I stop, the emergency power seems to still be working here. They must have some kind of solar backup or something, because the inside emergency lights still work. I sneak over, and discover I am not alone in noticing this. There are wires exposed and they have been spliced into, and a rather dodgy looking outlet is wired up to them. I plug both my scooter and the GoPro charger into it, then look around the store. It is cleaned out, with nothing usable left. It will take all day for the scooter and batteries to charge, as slow as they are going, so I need to find somewhere safe to hide. Across the street I see a thick bushy tree, its length hangs down to the ground. I start to consider that, but I am already too warm as it is. To the West side of the street is the canal, with its ash covered water. I go splash some on me, then go back to crawl under the bushy tree, and wait it out. 

During the day, I see a few vehicles drive by, their windows covered with bars, and gun barrels poking out the windows. I see smaller groupings of infected as they migrate by, searching for food. I am always scared of them, but maybe I am becoming somewhat numb to this new reality. Seeing zombies walking down the street in hunting packs, scares me but not like it used to. I am almost expecting them. The times when I see nobody at all are the scariest. I don't know what it means, but the times I see other survivors, I am the most scared. Maybe because I know what to expect from the infected. They will attack if they notice me. Survivors, however, they are unpredictable. They might help me, or kill me, or rape me, or eat me... there simply is no telling. I find it somehow ironic, that in the zombie apocalypse, man is still the most dangerous animal. I guess when you take away the shiny lights, the loud music, the fancy clothes and technology, we really have not evolved as far as we think we have.

As I retrieve my batteries and the scooter, I climb up on top of a house, using the sight on the M4 to get a clear view of the Phoenix area. The high rises there are still burning. Debris from them swirls around in the fire tornadoes, and lands all over. I feel so bad for whoever might have been trying to hide in those tall towers. They would have had no chance at all, and would surely have died horribly. Even if they made it out, the area around them is so fully engulfed that there would be no escape. I suppose, even if you could have found a way to survive that, the heat and the smoke would kill you, and chances are there would be little oxygen left. That also means, there will be a minimum distance I will have to keep, as I go around, because any closer, the fumes and smoke will kill me, and any farther, and the thicker gathering of infected will... this will be like threading a needle, only blindfolded, and having no idea where the eye of the needle is.


	14. Chapter 14

My eyes burn. That thought keeps going through my head, over and over. My eyes burn. The smoke is making my chest hurt. I have to go as slow as death, the zombies are everywhere. There is a thick layer of soot covering everything, its like a blizzard. The thought that some of this was, is, likely the remains of people, bothers me with every breath. It is also so hot that every step is an exercise in determination. As I go closer to Phoenix, to both get to the evacuation site, as well as to get away from the zombies, I have to lose some gear. It is just too heavy to be carrying all the guns, and food and I don't dare lose the water. I heard you can go a couple weeks before dying of starvation, but you will die in a matter of days from dehydration. That timeline may or may not be so true, here in the deep desert. With the heat of the sun, as well as the hot wind from the inferno, it feels like walking into hell.

I am close enough, that some buildings are still smoldering, others are as burned as they can get. From time to time, I do see a random zombie stagger out of something, more of then than not, on fire. I should take pity on them, a shot to the head, or something, but I don't. It is sad enough to see them come to this. It is sad enough to see everything come to this. As I skirt around the inferno, through the charred remains of what once was a great city, I see nothing left. Every tree, gone, every building, a gutted shell, every car, burned, every person, melted flesh on charred bone. The only life here is my own, and the occasional survivor, looting the bones of the dead. I don't dare make contact with them, they would likely take what I have, and kill me, or worse. I have to lose the M-4, and the ammo for it. I find a place under a burned out garbage bin, the big body kind that trucks pick up and leave. I push it under there, as far as I can. I am sad to see it go, even though I never had much use for it. Even now, the scope on it is useless. There is no way to see more than a few meters at most, in this snow fall of ash.

I have the hood up on my hoodie, it is very warm, but it keeps the soot off me. From time to time, I stop and take a sip of water. I am trying to keep what little I have, for as long as I can. There is no telling when, or where, I may find more. It is hard to even get that far. Sometimes I think I am making progress, but then I discover a street is blocked by burning vehicles, or the smoldering remains of an aircraft that fell. I end up turning back, finding another way around. What should take hours, is taking all day. The fire is constantly turning day into twilight, so I have no idea how long I am at it. I know I am getting closer, because I can see, in the distance, the glowing, red hot pieces of buildings. Even through this soot filled air, the glowing beams and burning pieces of building in central Phoenix, glow like a spotlight in the night. Some of the buildings have fallen. One or two, at least, lean against others. A couple are half there, as the top portions collapsed. Explosions echo throughout the eternal twilight. Bright flashes of fire from the explosions fill the sky for brief moments, like flashes from a camera. I try to take it all in, with the GoPro. I have no idea if this footage will be helpful, or even if I will get somewhere to upload it, but I have to at least try. Our web site may be the only source for news left in the world. Who would have thought, with the huge cable news agencies, and the national intelligence networks, that the world would now turn to some obscure school web site, for its sole source of information about the zombie apocalypse. What is even more humbling, is that it comes from a little girl, lost and alone.

There are so many homes, millions of them, it seems. Every street, nothing but housing projects. They are all burned, all useless. The people inside, nothing but ash. The scale of death is stunning to me. I suppose maybe you have not really considered it. Everyone I have ever known, with few exceptions, i hope, is dead. Everyone they ever knew, is dead. Everyone that knew the people that knew my friends, are dead. On and on it goes. How many iterations of that before the mind simply can not fathom it? I really am not sure there are enough people left, in America at least, to provide a viable gene-pool. Maybe they have a lot of people up there wherever my friends made it to. I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I had been with them. I wish I had someone, anyone, to talk to. It is very lonely, walking through hell, with little hope that I will survive. I am starting to accept that it is more than likely, more like inevitable, that I will die. I feel myself crying, already mourning the childhood that is being taken from me. Everything that could have been, my first dance, my first boyfriend, my first prom, my first... date... my first.... everything. Instead, I have my first gun, killed my first person. I walked past my first slaughter, escaped my first zombie, and now, I am remembering my first thoughts that it would be so easy to just end it now. I am running out of time, and I have so far to go. 

Eventually, I come to what looks as if it may have been a hospital, but is now just a blackened shell of a building, and I simply lose the ability to go on. I slide down a wall, till I am hugging my knees. I hear shots, from about sixty meters away. They are not at me. I reluctantly get up, taking cover behind a collapsed wall, and watch as a handful of men are running, firing behind them, at a larger group of men. It occurs to me, it always seems to be men. I don't see groups of women running around with guns, killing each other. It is always men. I watch in fascination, trying to understand how this impulse becomes so strong in them. We are a heartbeat from extinction, and the best they can do, is kill each other off even more. At a time when what is left of us needs to come together, and try to make something from the ruins, they instead, are running around playing mad men, until there is no one left. It makes me wonder, if we, as a species I mean, even deserve to go on. Is it just in man's nature to kill each other, and himself, in the process?

I suppose it is true, in a way, that entropy is the greatest force in the universe. From the moment a thing is created, the universe is trying to destroy it. From super massive black holes, to microbes, large and small, there are various forces trying to destroy everything. Perhaps humans are simply a complex form of that bacteria. Maybe our entire role in the universe, is to destroy life. We certainly seem to be quite capable at it. Perhaps on other planets, there was or even is, life. And maybe they have their own form of humans, trying to destroy it all. It is rather humbling, to think that our entire existence, is merely to be the universes means to destroy life on Earth. 

The larger group, as is inevitable, finally encircles the smaller group. There is some amount of gunfire involved. I stay low, barely visible as I am covered with the same ash that everything is. The pools of blood that spring forth from the dead, are quickly turned to nothing more than dark blots of ash. The murderers waste no time, stripping the dead naked, taking everything from them, that they had not taken in life. They leave them there, just naked corpses, no respect, not even a moment of reflection on what they have done. Even now, amid the dead, the destruction, the sanctity of life is lost on man. Whatever world comes after, if one still exists, will have to rethink everything. Clearly the ways of the past have failed, led us to this. The old ways have left us with the lack of humanity, in whats left of humanity. The irony, I guess, is not lost on me.

As the killers move off, I sip some more water. I am tempted to raise the little MP5 up and shoot the last of them, but that would make me nothing more than another like that. Besides, I have this camera recording my every move. I have no intention of showing the world, that I am nothing more than an animal like them. One day there will be a reconciling, and those like that, will be held accountable for their crimes. I would like to think that in the end, when I am dead, that I am remembered as having been one of the good ones. Though, with blood on my hands, I am not so entirely sure that will be. I am not even entirely sure there will even be anyone left to remember me at all.


	15. Chapter 15

Silence. The lack of any appreciable sound. I hear my breath, the sound of my sneakers on the road, the rattle of my pack. Around me, like a snowy winter day, the constant fall of ash. The ash, and constant steady wind, generated by the inferno itself, tugs at me. It is the blizzard of ash that makes it nearly impossible to see, or be seen. I know nothing of the outside world, only what I can half see, in the small distance of visibility that is in front of me. From time to time, I stumble upon a body, often far more fresh than I would prefer. Most have died from causes other than other humans. Some are dead infected, others, burned beyond recognition, and some perhaps naturally. There are always the murders.

I'm not sure exactly where I am, when I stumble upon a castle. At first I can't believe my eyes. I stay low, hiding among some wrecked cars. There is movement in there. I can see a few dark shapes moving, slowly. If they are dark, they were inside, and just came outside, since everything, including me, is covered in ash. The problem is, I need to get inside. The build up of ash on my mask is starting to get too thick to breath. I need to get inside to wipe it off and also to rest. I am tired, and have walked so far today, my legs just want to rest. There is a turnstile at the main doors, the kind you see at amusement parks, so I guess that is what this is. Whatever it is, I need in there, and that means I'm going to have to fight for that.

The turnstile is difficult to move. I can tell the infected have been trying to get in here from time to time, because there are dead zombies pushed off to the sides. Whoever is in there, is using the dead to form a barrier, to slow down or stop more infected. I suppose, since anyone in the area has to wear a face mask, and the air is already filled with the smell of burning.... everything... that they really don't care about the smell outside. I don't care so much right now either. I push through the turnstile, slowly, hearing it groan a bit. It stops before I am half way through and I then see the chain they wrapped around it. Fortunately, they did not actually lock it, because there is no way to really do that, but they did make it so that it can not turn, until the chain is carefully unwrapped. I take the time to do that, being as quiet as I can be. Then push through the rest of the way, wrapping the chain around it again. If they are that worried about infected, which clearly seem to be in the area, then I am too.

The front door is unlocked, so I pull on it, and peek inside. There is a large central fire pit, which is burning, ironically, and at least seven people huddled around it. I open the door enough to slip inside, then close it slowly behind me, then raise my MP5 and start towards the people by the fire. They don't seem to notice me, and I can see they are cooking. When I get within twenty feet of them, I can hear them discussing how they are running out of food and water. There are three children, two younger than me, one, a boy, about three years older than me, if I had to guess.I count six adults, and they mention at least six or seven more, that are outside. I don't know if they mean in the back area that was fenced off, or outside, where I was. I am not really sure how one introduces them self to strangers, in the zombie apocalypse, so I guess maybe I am making it up now. "I am not going to hurt anyone, I promise." I say loud enough for them to hear. The expected panic ensues, as mothers try to shield their children, and the other adults move to place themselves between me and them. "Take it easy now, I am here to help." I say stepping into visible area, from behind the old arcade machine I was hiding behind. I am not holding the MP5 at them, I lower it and then pull my mask down, getting the first breath of fairly clean air I have had in a while.

"Take it easy, she's just a child." One of the women say, once they see me. Part of me revels in that, being just a child. Part of me is insulted. I have seen more, done more, and experienced more, in the past few weeks, than any child ever has that I know of. I point toward the coffee pot they have. The same lady nods, and starts to pour a cup of coffee.

As I walk over, I am aware of two of them stepping out of sight, probably to go get help, or guns. "I am just passing through. I just need a place to sit down and clean my mask. I am on my way to the evacuation site. I don't want any trouble, just a place to sit down and rest for a few, then I will be on my way. There is not much time to spare to get there." I tell them, meanwhile sitting down and unscrewing the filters of my mask. I tap them out, then unzip my hoodie and use my inner shirt to wipe them down.

"Evacuation site?" A man asks. He looks at the others, then at me. I can see them getting excited, I guess all hope of getting away from this living hell, had long ago been lost. I nod, drinking some coffee. "Yes, it is East of Mesa, by some reservation. I can show you on my map, if you think you and your group here, can make it there." I say with a shrug. By now the other two have returned, along with three men with rifles. The woman that first spoke waves them to put their guns down. "There is a military evacuation force coming, in a few weeks. Anyone that is not there, is left behind." I say waving to the new men. They have no idea what to make of a little girl knowing more than them.

"And just how do you know this?" one of them demands. I guess that is a reasonable question. I wipe off the GoPro and change out the battery. They look at me oddly, not understanding why I would be wearing a camera.

"I was in communication with some friends. They were evacuated already. The military has a place set up in Colorado. They asked me to take video of everything here, for some reason. So if you want to go, here... this is where to go." I say showing them where to go on my little map.

"This legit?" A woman asks hugging her children. I nod, since I have nothing to lose. I pull out my iPad and show them the last web site messages I got. I have to turn it back off, since we no longer have power, there is no telling when it's battery may go dead. I worry about running out of batteries for the camera, but if that happens, it happens. I can't do much about that anyhow. The group gathers around, discussing what to do. While they talk, I steal something to eat, and drink the rest of the coffee. I've had time to rest, so it is time to get going.

While they talk, I wave goodbye and leave through a side door. I didn't know about the side doors because I could not see them. As They continue to discuss what to do, I slip out into the ash blizzard. I don't know what they decide, I guess I will find out. It is getting late afternoon, I need to find somewhere safe to sleep, by late evening. That gives me a few hours to find something. I just don't feel comfortable sleeping with that group of strangers. Before this, I would not have given it a second thought. Since I have experienced the worst of mankind, I don't know if I will ever feel safe, or trusting again.


	16. Chapter 16

I've been on the run now for days. The hoard that I encountered drove me farther in, toward the inferno, but then I ran into some marauders. We exchanged some shots, and I may have hit one, but I was way outnumbered, so I ran. I got turned around pretty bad, but yesterday I started to get a feel for the abandoned neighborhoods. The marauders are still following me. I am running now, it feels like I have run for days, maybe because I have been. The heat is intolerable. Even without the inferno, creating it's own weather, the summer heat is just mind baking. I have gone through all my water, and am starting to feel very light headed. I know I dropped most of my gear yesterday, maybe the day before. It is a struggle to remember to not strip the mask off my face. It is so hard to breath. I know the filters are clogged, but without them, I would breath in the ash and be dead in no time. 

I am in a sea, and ocean of houses. There seems to be no end of them. With every street, a new horror, a new danger that my brain can not process. I just run, finally escaping this sea of houses, this endless wasteland of burned and twisted wreckage, into a scorched desert. Behind me, I hear them, shooting at anything they even think is me. How they have so much ammunition, I don't know. They must be military, or looted a base, they have military weapons, and armor. I stand no chance against them, and I am terrified, more than I have ever been. They are hunting me, driving me forward. I know, at some point, they will spring their trap. I have to keep running, keep trying to lose them.

I think I have gone mad. I can not tell you how long it has been, since I was last in contact with them. I abandoned my gear, keeping only my MP5 and two extra things of bullets. I abandoned my jacket, and even my hat. I had to climb through some desert, tearing at my hands, my elbows and knees. I have not had a thing to drink in days. My lips are so dry, I am light headed. I can only go for a few minutes at a time, then I must lay down, and just roll around, trying to keep some part of me in the nearly dead breeze. I can not get cool enough. I guess I go mad, when I see a housing complex, it looks mostly intact, but somewhat intact. It is out of the inferno, out of the desert, so I go to it, driven by mindless fear, and the hope that if I die, I won't die in the desert.

I have to kick my way inside a large building. The doors finally give way, and I roll inside, practically dragging myself. Outside, there are still infected, wandering the streets, but I have gotten pretty good at evading them. I think I also have finally lost the marauders. They have nothing left to get from me anyhow. My backpack is gone. I have just the small bag I keep the gun ammo in, as well as the iPad, and charger, and the batteries for the GoPro. If I die, maybe whoever finds this, will be able to watch, to learn, and to survive. I hope they do better than me.

I lay in the dark, just enjoying not having the sun burning down on me, but it is hotter inside, so I force my legs to push me out the unlocked back doors, under an awning. I see a snack machine, untouched, but without power. I no longer care. I smash at it with the MP5, until it gives way, and I can get into it. My hands shake as I tear open a juice box. I don't care that it probably is not good for me. I need to drink, and right now, anything at all is better than.... and then I see it. To my right, I see the pile of bodies. There must be hundreds of them, maybe thousands. There is no way to tell. It sobers me up, seeing them there, all rather arranged, in lawn chairs, dead. Every one of them, dead. I drop the juice box, stunned into a horrified disbelief. I look down, after a time, at the juice box, spilling on the ground, and when I look back up, I see, nearly invisible, in the layer of ash, what seems to be deck chairs, arranged around the moving ground. It must be a pool. I strip off what is left of my clothing, and walk to it, finally slipping into the water, making a hole in the uniformly white layer of ash that seems to coat everything. The water is warm, but cooler than the air. I splash around, pushing the ash away, until I have a rather clear little spot, to dunk myself and cool down.

It is at least a good ten to fifteen minutes, before I finally drag myself out, knowing that I have to clear my mask, before I breath too much of this ash. Today it is not coming down so hard, the wind has turned a bit, and even my allergies are letting up on me. I unscrew the filter caps and pull them out, tapping them off on the side of the pool, then dunking them in the water and giving them a good washing. They have blackened stains in the middle of them, on the outside, so I can only imagine what my lungs would have looked like, without the mask. My clothes are not worth keeping, they are so torn and ruined. My sneakers are barely usable, so I hold on to them. I walk back to where the juice is, in the snack machine, looking over the other machine. It is a typical soda style machine, and my experience has told me, it is next to impossible to get into them. In desperation, I reach up into it, through the hole they come out of, and I can feel some of the bottle tops, so I give them a good pull, managing to pull three out. I drink them down, delighted to have something in my mouth. It was so tempting to drink the pool water, but I know it was dirty.

I lay there, under the awning, just cooling off, in just my undies, dipping into the pool to stay wet, until it get late evening. It is much easier to breath in my mask, and I am grateful. The stench of the dead, in their macabre suicide pact, barely phases me anymore. As gruesome as it is, the smell of their dead bodies, covers my own scent, and the infected wandering the streets on the other side of the rather dodgy looking fence, do not seem to even notice me. I manage to get a few more bottles out of the machine, as well as some snacks out of the one I broke into earlier. As I wander around this pool section, I discover, to my astonishment, a huge man made lake. Well, maybe not huge in the sense of a real lake, but for man made, its pretty big. I also discover one building has some solar panels. It has low power, but enough that I can plug in my charger for the Go Pro batteries, and when I try my iPad, it actually connects. I, apparently, am at some Roadrunner Lake Resort. By the map I see, I appear to be on the right side of the Phoenix Metro Area, so I am closing in on the evacuation site. I still have a very long way to go though. By the calendar, I am running out of time. I need to get faster, or I will not make it in time. It is not easy to navigate a strange place, blindly. I get turned around a lot, with having to avoid dangerous areas, or groups of infected. What seemed like a fairly easy date to arrive, is rapidly becoming a countdown to being left behind again.

With just my shoes, my undies, and my little bag, I walk to the large man made lake. I lay the MP5 down at the edge, and wade down the short incline to the water, and take one last dip, before moving on. I have some open desert, reservation land, to make my way through. I hope, along the way, I will find something to wear, but right now, there is nothing.

I head to the streets to the East side, and start to sneak along, feeling rather silly. there are some houses, as always, there are houses, before the end of the complex, and then it is open desert again. I open a gate, slipping into a yard, between groups of wandering infected. I wonder, for a moment, why they wander in groups. Maybe at the instinctual level, we all want comfort. I remember reading, how we are all so isolated inside out mind. We are so absolutely alone, only given any sense of the world through our senses. Maybe these infected, even at their most instinctual level, seek that same desire for contact. I asked one of my teachers about that, they only mentioned a book by Kines. I never got around to reading it. I wish I had made time. I wish I had made time for friends, for family. I wish I made time for life. It goes by so fast, and ends so suddenly.

I make my way past the gate on the far side, closing it behind me as quietly as I can. I can see some infected, wandering down the street. They should smell me by now, but I guess, in this ash filled air, they can not smell anything. They look rather sick. I don't think they have eaten since... well.. a long time. They look skin and bone, and now and then, one will attack another, as if testing to see who is the weakest. I stay to the shadows, hiding behind a cactus, which, when nearly naked, is no easy task. They stumble past me, oblivious to me, and merely following the last group that did the same. I test a door knob, finally finding one unlocked. I close it behind me. I have gotten good at breaking into these older mobile homes. They are usually similar in layout, so finding things of interest becomes easier with each effort. This one belonged to a nice older couple from Edmonton, Canada. Her taste in clothes was... well, the fashion police would have arrested her for a fashion assassination. Apparently, Edmonton is where fashion goes to die. Still, from her husband, of equally dubious fashion heritage, I do manage to find a tee shirt. I do manage to find some jeans, but apparently she was a rather... rotund lady, and I could fit five of me, in each leg. Well, if she was one of the club house gang, she doesn't need to worry about that anymore, and if shes wandering the streets, I'm sure shes lost that weight now.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat about a half dozen times, and I finally find some jeans that fit, though are a bit long. A few minutes with some scissors, and that is taken care of. I check in with the web site, and see more well wishes, so I spend the rest of the day uploading video, then take a long sleep in a lawn chair, under an awning, in a back yard. It feels good to just lay down and sleep, after so many days on the run. The next five days go about the same. I sneak around, taking my time, and looting houses for anything of value. I need food, drink, a new backpack, and maybe another set of clothes. Unfortunately, along the way, I went to shoot a couple of infected, and discovered, the MP5 is broken. I cant make the handle thing work, to put a new bullet in it, and the old bullet wont come out. I end up having to abandon it, along with the bullets, since they are no good without the gun to shoot them.

I leave the Roadrunner Lake Resort, a little less than a week, after arriving. I used the time well, knowing each hour, was an hour lost. Still, I have a lot of ground to cover, and without supplies, I would be just as I was, when I stumbled into the Resort. Barely, alive, and likely to die, if it was not for the miracle of the pool. I cant let that happen to me again. I can be excused last time, I was on the run after all. I had little choice, but to push myself to my limit, but now, to leave without supplies, would just be foolish. I do manage to find a garden ho, which may not be a great weapon, but it beats nothing at all. I put the gathered bottles of water, and some boxes of cereal and crackers, into a little back pack. It is not rugged, and will not handle the rough treatment the last one did, however, I need it. I leave the resort, carrying the garden ho, and head off through the desert.


	17. Chapter 17

My few days walking are spent, mostly, just trying to will my legs to keep going. I have come so far, and it feels like I have light years to go before I can even begin to feel like I have a chance of escaping this nightmare. The infected seem to be getting somewhat fewer. I can't really explain it. I suppose, having exhausted all possible food sources, they began to turn on each other, and then when that was not enough, they sort of started to die. As far as I am concerned, that is perfectly fine. Now, don't mistake this as they are gone. There are still plenty of them out here.I just have noticed fewer of them, and that is fine with me. I am kind of weird on this. Lately I have noticed, I can't sleep at all, if I don't hear them screaming and howling in the distance. I suppose, as long as I hear them out there, somewhere else, I can convince myself that they are not near me, just waiting to pounce and eat me.

One thing about the zombie apocalypse, when the smoke from the Phoenix inferno is blowing the other way, the skies are amazingly clear. There is no pollution at all. I can see stars I have never seen before. It gets dark out at night, so amazingly dark. I never knew it could be so dark. With all the lights off, as far as the eye can see, and far far beyond, it lets the stars shine like crazy little diamonds up there. Even the nebula's and the other stuff, all shines down on me at night. It is at times like this, as I walk along here at night, that I almost don't miss the old world. It is so peaceful... well, except for the millions of rotting corpses, and the murderous zombies trying to kill me, but other than that, its very peaceful out. I wonder what that says about me, now. How has this changed me? I don't really mind the thought of killing them. I know in my mind, they are, or were human. They once had a life, with dreams, family, aspirations, love... I suppose they may find a cure for this, but I wonder, would it be a good idea to cure them? I mean, if they remember all they have done, that would really be something to live with.

Even if they don't remember, I suppose wondering where you have been, what you have done, what happened to your loved ones, and wondering if you were the cause of their demise, would be even harder to live with. If this ever ends, and somehow we discover there is a place out there, untouched by this, and if they were to welcome us survivors into their civilization, would I deserve to be there? I mean, I am not the girl I used to be. I kill, readily. I fear other people. I don't know that I would have a place in a civilized society. Maybe I am only one step up from the creatures that stole my world. I worry that maybe I am just a less violent version of them. That bothers me. But then, the fact that I wonder, and worry, does that mean maybe I am not like I fear I am? I wish I had someone to talk to, to ask these questions to. I don't feel old enough, or wise enough to answer them. Part of me still sees me as just a kid, a girl that can't even drive, and never even got to go on my first date, to my first dance. I have to try to square that with the lonely girl walking along with a garden ho, killing her way through the zombie apocalypse. I cant reconcile that in my head. I can not be both. I know, logically, I am, but I feel separate, apart from myself. It is like that part of my life is just a distant memory, and a silly one, like a TV sitcom that I no longer watch, nor understand. Which then leaves me worrying that even if I do get rescued, what if I have to go back to my friends? What will they say? What will they think of me? Will they recognize me? Will they accept me back? I am nothing like I was. I can never be that girl again. 

I head due South. According to the map, there is a freeway there that should lead me to my destination. I pass many housing projects. Most are still infested. Sometimes I hear gunfire, and I take cover, sneaking along until I no longer hear it. At one point, I do discover the remains, fresh I should add, of some of the prisoners. They appear to have gotten into a fight with another group of survivors. I wonder if it was the group from the castle. If so, it seems there are many of us heading to the evacuation site. Who would blame us? This place is a literal hell on Earth. Today, it is amazingly humid. Even just breathing is difficult. The sun beats down with no mercy, and the air feels like a fog. I am soaked in sweat, though it does no good. The air is just as hot as I am, and I can not cool myself. I know better now, than to just walk until I collapse. I walk for a while, usually a city block or two, then sit down and rest. If possible, I find something to crawl under, and I lay down and close my eyes and just try to relax. I am somewhat surprised at how relatively dull this part of my journey is. After so much danger, being nearly killed, chased, on the run, to just walk down the streets, is almost eerie in its simplicity. If I were ever to live in a society again, I would feel strange being able to walk somewhere safely.

One thing you should know about the zombie apocalypse, is, the lack of noise. Humans are an amazingly noisy species. We lived in a world, where we were constantly bombarded by noise. From people talking, to radios, televisions, computers, phones, automobiles, airplanes, motorbikes, and more. The world we created was unbelievably noisy. Now, it is so quiet, you can hear your own breaths, your own foot steps. It seems easier to think, because my mind is no longer being bombarded with all the noise. It is because of this, that it is possible to hear so many new things. It is because of this, that any automobile noise at all, is easy to hear and locate. Gunshots are clear and seem louder. I can hear them from much greater distances because they are no longer drowned out by ambient noises around me. This silence also makes it far easier to hear the infected. They are none too subtle about their steps, or their growling. I have worked out, they are talking to each other, which I think is very strange. They have only existed for a relatively short time, yet they have already developed some primitive language. If I were smarter, I would want to know how they can do that. They do not seem that intelligent, but I suspect they are getting smarter. This scares me, really. If they get to the point of understanding how to open doors and climb ladders, it may be the end for us survivors. We use those small advantages just to survive. I just hope we can outlast them. I hope enough of humanity still exists, after them, to rebuild.I wonder what that future will be like.

It is the second week after I left the resort. Today something happened. The power came back on. Not everywhere. There are still large parts of the city in darkness, but some parts are now lit up at night. I take the time to find a place to rest, enjoying the air conditioning, while I can. I suppose the Army may have sent people out to try to get the power grid back up. That would make sense. The noise, as I was just saying, now makes it harder to hear the infected. It seems like the world just does not want me to get comfortable. Just as I start to adapt to this new life, it changes again. I suppose that is just how it will always be, from now on. Every day will be a test of survival. 

I make it to the freeway, of course, it is lined with broken cars and dead bodies as far as I can see. The sounds of the infected echo from parts South of the freeway. Along the way I did manage to find another bicycle, and I did manage to get a pistol off the corpse of a police officer, that was murdered in his car. I have been walking along with the bicycle, because I have learned, moving too fast, too noisily, in a city, can get you dead fast. The rules change, however, on the freeway. It is much more open, and there is no real cover, no way to escape, once you start going. Speed is your only friend. If you can just go faster than the infected, or stay faster than the survivors that are hunting you, you can survive on the roads. It is still very hard going, because often the lanes are so clogged with wreckage, there is no way to ride past, and I must tote the bicycle over the top of the wreckage.

My progress, obviously, is limited and slow. I often stop, get under cover, and wait it out, when I hear gunfire, or a vehicle. The prisoners and the other survivors seem to have decided to go to war, and there are even explosions. That draws the infected toward their fighting, which is fine with me. I only see a few strays, either too slow to make it to them, or unable to. I can not even begin to count the housing communities I pass. There must be millions of them. OK, so that can't possibly be true, likely no more than tens of thousands. Still, I feel like all I do is pass one walled off group of corpses, after another. The smell is back, or rather never left. Just how long does it take for a corpse to rot into nothing? I have no idea, and my old self would never have wanted to know. Somehow, I get the feeling, that information is going to become valuable, at some point.I wonder just how long it has been, since it all started. I have lost track of the days. I only know, I must keep putting miles behind me.I have to keep going.

I finally come to a large open field on the North side of the road. I have managed to get to a street called Sossaman Road. I decide that I need to lay low for a few days. I am tired, and sick of pedaling that bike. The weather looks bad, like it will start to rain any minute. I know that is a sign the monsoons are coming, or here. One huge haboob and I won't be able to keep going until the dust settles. I find a wrecked semi truck. The driver apparently was OK, and got out, because I don't see their body. That is good. The truck, itself, is one of those with the big thing on back to sleep in, so I decide to make it my place, for a couple days, until this storm hits. I slide my bike under the back end, so nothing bothers it, then roll the windows down just a little, and curl up in the back. As usual, I fall asleep to the sound of violence, before the storm hits, and then all I hear is the pounding of the rain.


	18. Chapter 18

It was relatively nice when I woke up, so making progress was not too terrible. The skies are dark, overcast is nice. It makes the world seem darker, which, if you happen to be a rather petite girl, with a large bag and a creaky bike, makes sneaking down the parkway relatively easier. I push my bike along, simply because my legs hurt from riding it so much, and walking it hurts less. This is what my world is about now, pain. The constant smell, I am used to. The silence, I sort of like now. The loneliness, well given the alternative, is welcome. I can hear the occasional cry of one of the infected, as they find something to kill, but they sound somehow... desperate. I have seen them turn on each other, and I wonder if maybe they are doing that now, desperate for food. I think anything that they could have caught, they have, and now it is just them, and the stragglers, like me. The thing is, the paradigm is changing for them. They are getting weaker, from hunger, and we are getting better, at survival. When this started, I was weak, I was unskilled, and I was easy prey. Today, I am armed, I know how to evade, and I have killed more than a few, and today, I have no hesitation in killing. I don't even question it, when I raise my pistol up and shoot one of them. In fact, I rather like that, because it means one less of them to worry about. If I had my way, I would kill them all.

I suppose this bothers me. I mean, if this ever ends, if whatever did this, never happens again, and the world someday starts to rebuild, what kind of world will we make? A bunch of armed killers, willing to just draw down on each other, and kill, without hesitation. What kind of world would that look like? How are we any better than the infected? In a way, we are just the same. They don't kill each other, unless they feel, sense, whatever the word would be, that it is necessary. It seems like we are just the same. The difference seems to be, what we feel the requirements are. As for me, at this stage of this nightmare, it really is not much at all. I want to get to the evacuation site, and I want to live. Anything, or anyone that stands between me and that goal, needs to die. With the infected getting smarter, yet more desperate, I really can't say how this will end. We hold the advantage with guns, but ammunition is getting harder to find, and they hold the advantage with sheer numbers, but they are also dwindling. I suppose it will come down to, who can hold on the longest. Since right now, we are the hunted, I am afraid, they will win. Then again, once I get evacuated, and can finally lay down my guns and feel safe, that feeling might change.

I finally end up riding along, with a fortunate wind at my back, helping me. The endless desert stretches on forever, till the distant mountains. I pass the exits to some place called Apache Junction, and the entire way i hear random shots and screams of the infected. Three times, I hear the sounds of machines, one was definitely a truck, the other two, I can't say. That noise seems to draw the infected to it, which means they are not at all interested in me. I only stop, briefly, to refill my water bottles, then keep going. There is a storm coming, and it looks like it will be a real frog choker. I dread the thought of being out in it, but given a choice between the insufferable heat, and the storm, it's a no-brainer. The parkway leaves Apache Junction behind, and for a while, it is open desert. 

I come to a place called Gold Canyon, which by the way, is neither gold, nor a canyon. My instincts tell me, stay away, so I continue past. That is one thing about living in the zombie apocalypse, you will learn to listen to your instincts, or you will get dead fast. I can hear some shooting in gold canyon, but again, it has nothing to do with me. I feel bad for whoever the sad bastard is, but I really am in no position to help them, I can't even help myself. I am a coward, when it comes right down to it. All I can think of, is that evacuation site, and leaving this shit hole behind. It takes me a few minutes, before I realize, seeing my friends really is not that much of a priority anymore. Just getting the hell out of here is. I wonder about myself. Just who am I becoming?

I pedal for a day and a half, before my bicycle gets a flat tire. I have no way to repair it, so I am forced to just walk it along, because I simply do not want to carry all that weight, of my water bottles, and the few canned items, and my blankets and clothing, I have been holding on to from the semi-truck. Naturally, this slows me down a lot, and makes me vulnerable to the elements. The storm finally does come, and I am stuck once again, sitting under an overpass, waiting for it to go by. As I do, I hear someone coming. The sound of a car is unmistakable these days, so I take cover, and make sure my little pistol is ready. When they finally arrive, I want to bang my head against the side of the overpass. They stop under it too, and I am forced to crouch just outside, in the rain, where it goes up to meet the road over. 

They are in a pickup truck. The truck looks like it has seen far better days, with the front end kind of smashed up, from pushing other cars out of the way, I bet. There are paint marks across it, especially on the edges. It is a huge front bumper though, not what comes with a pickup truck, i think. The back end is flat, and there are lots of things lashed down under a tarp. Whoever this is, they have taken a lot of thought in getting this together. Though they speak Spanish, they seem nice. I hear a lot of laughing from the three women, and they have four children stuffed into the back seat of the truck. They also have five men, one that drives, and four that sit on the back end, with their rifles. 

One finally spots me, and they all cover me with their guns, so I just raise my hands. I am not in a position to fight, and I am in less of a position to keep going on foot. According to the map, I am so far from my evacuation site, it is difficult to imagine arriving there in time. I have lost a lot of time with going through Phoenix. That took far longer than it should have, and I needed so many additional days to recover from the adventures there, that I am barely going to make it, if I pretty much push myself to my limit. That would mean going without food or water, when i eventually do run out, and abandoning the bike entirely, when I am too weak to push it. Even if I do make it, I may not survive.

They motion for me to come down, so I make my way down, turning around so they can see, I do have a gun, and they make me take it out and put it down. I step away from it, and one of the women pick it up and walk back to the men. "You are free to go." one says. I look at him like he is nuts. I mean, really, free to go? Is he freakin insane? You disarm someone in the middle of nowhere, in the zombie apocalypse, then say, go ahead, leave...

I shake my head, putting my arms down. Yes, I know they could kill me now, but right now, after all i have been through, fear no longer really has the effect it once did. "I am not going anywhere without my bike, and my gun." I say crossing my arms. I suppose the sight of a teenage girl, looking as pathetic as I must, refusing to leave without her bike and gun seems particularly amusing, because they all start to laugh at me. I grin a bit, since this may well be the last few moments of my life. Still, if they were the prisoners, or the scavengers, I would be dead, or raped already, not being disarmed and told to go away. "Besides, I was here first. So if anyone should leave, its YOU!" I say pushing my luck.

"I like her, can we keep her?" One of the women says between fits of laughter. I see them lower their guns, and the man that seems to be in charge, walks over to me. "I know you from somewhere." He says, looking me over. "Yes.. its her, the girl that told us about the evacuation site." he says putting an arm around me. he pulls me over to the truck, where they offer me something to eat and drink, which i gladly accept. A cup of hot cocoa, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich are more than delicious, they are like heaven.

"I thought there were more of you." I say after a while, and they kinda look down. I guess there was, and that isn't the case anymore.

"Well, at first, we were not going to leave, but then those raiders you warned us about, found us. it was a big fight, and we lost. Most of us... well, the rest, we found each other on the run, and eventually stole this truck and some supplies from a few of them, that were drunk, from our booze, we were keeping. Since we had nowhere else to go, we decided to take a chance on this evacuation site. I take it, you are still trying to get there?" he asks. I nod. "How much longer do we have?" he asks. I shrug. I lost track of the days, and couldn't say. 

"I don't know. Maybe a few, maybe they already came, I am not sure. I think we have a few weeks, at least I am hoping so. I gave up on keeping track of the days, I slept through a few, recovering from stuff." I say as one of the women starts to brush out my hair, and another looks for dry warm clothing for me. 

"Well, we probably have at least a couple weeks, and I think I can get us there by tomorrow, even as slow as we are going." he says shrugging. It is true, they were going very slowly. I see now they are so overloaded, that the truck probably struggles just to move. Still, this means we can possibly have enough supplies to wait until the evacuation comes. "You will be coming with us, I think, we can't very well abandon you now." he says smiling, as he gives me back my pistol. "Honestly, I figured you for dead by now. You are one hell of a girl." he says with a laugh. "How you survive, alone, out in this wasteland, I can't imagine, but you must have some kinda luck, or skills, so welcome to the family."

Just like that, My luck turns, and we spend the rest of the day, and night, getting to know each other, and waiting until the rain stops. It does later the next day, close to noon. We set off, me riding in back with the others, and I sit on a box full of cans of soda, with a pillow, I am sure came from a sofa somewhere, as we trundle along, no faster than ten, maybe fifteen miles per hour. It feels good to be riding along, though it is also scary. I will admit, I was terrified, the entire ride.

Though we are trundling along slowly, as best as this poor old pickup truck can, we are also having to push the odd car wreck aside, from time to time. This takes up long stretches of nervous time, all of us on guard, watching for infected, which sometimes come, often not. We also run into a herd, no more than fifteen, and end up barely getting away, pushing the tired old truck just fast enough to out run them, before slowing again, as the engine light shows it is getting very hot. At times, I am told not to look, as the men take turns pee'ing on the engine, to cool it off, and we push on. The smell... well, it is not as bad as the smell of the rotting dead, but its... pungent.

The truck struggles up hill, it seems to never leave first gear most of the time, or if it does, not for long. The climb into higher altitudes also makes it harder for it to breath, and that complicates the situation. We have to pull over and let it rest often now, and the likelihood of making it to the evacuation site, dwindles with each increasingly difficult attempt, to start the truck back up. I suppose we should find a different truck, but nobody seems particularly interested in risking it, to go into an inhabited area, to find one. Besides, if we did, we would surely have to fight off infected, and then we still would have to transfer everything over to the new truck, which, the infected would be attacking the entire time, and there is no guarantee it would do any better. Quite simply, there are a lot more of us riding this truck, with enough supplies for us all, to last at least a month, plus all the fuel, and everything else, and the truck is overloaded way beyond what it was ever designed for. Added to that, I discover, they have several mattresses that they keep ready. When we get near another town, they all stop, then put the mattresses around the front end, and the sound of the engine is much harder to hear. They tell me, the problem is, it makes the truck run much hotter, since it can't breath. So when we have to do that for some town called Superior, I don't question it.

Superior, by the way, turns out to be a massive fight. There are definitely at least three sides fighting, and that seems very odd to me, given it is not exactly a large population. The factions must not be very large, but we can hear them taking shots at each other the entire time we creep by. I can't say for certain if there were many, or any infected left there, but whoever is there, definitely wants to hold on to it for themselves. We decide not to stop to refill the gas cans, and instead push on, refueling out of what we have with us, when we get to the other side. The hours we spent creeping through, will go as some of the scariest of my life so far. I have seen a lot, but the absolute carnage of Superior, takes my breath away. We leave behind the smoke of the fires, and the sounds of gunfire, and we fade into the hills. The parkway leads up, into the mountains, and we push through until it is so late we can not see. None of us want to risk the headlights, so we all agree to pull off the road. That night, we take turns on guard, and by the next morning, none of us are really rested, but we do push on.

We do make better time around the time we reach Miami, and Globe. These towns are so close, that I didn't know there was a difference. We rolled through, much of the time with the truck nearly idling, and there is not even a pin drop of noise. It seems like even the infected are quiet here. it is hauntingly quiet. It feels like people are all hiding, waiting to spring out yelling "surprise!" Instead, there is just the smell of rotting corpses, everywhere. There are bodies honestly, everywhere. It is like the entire town went mad, slaughtering each other where they stood. I feel sickened as we pass a school bus. The doors are torn off, and the windows are stained dark with the dried blood of whomever was inside. There was a pool of blood under it, that long dried, and the rains have washed much of it away, but we all can see the stains on the pavement. At the truck stops, there are lots of vehicles, each with doors opened, bodies hanging out. The same is in the restaurants and stores. We do stop, to refill the gas cans, and give the truck a breather, since it appears safe. The smell is not as bad as it used to be, when all this started, but rotting flesh is rotting flesh, and there is no way around that. Animals have eaten their share of the bodies, and so hardly any of the dead are intact, instead, there are just pieces littering the ground. Whatever happened, this place seems to have been hit particularly hard. This might explain the fighting in Superior. I imagine whoever did survive this, left town, and maybe is trying to make their place there.

None of that matters to me. We push on, the truck now free of its mattress covering, and now the climb is not so steep, it can go easier, often not even over-heating. So leaving Globe behind, we know, we are close. We all start to smile, this is it, we are nearly there. This is the final stretch. The miles to the San Carlos reservation drag by so very slowly. It is like time slows down, just to spite us. We get to the intersection, where we leave the parkway, and head more North, on a different parkway. We pass by a little truck stop called Cutter, and go more North, until we see it. Along the way we start to see the first signs that this is the place. We are watched as we pass by some other survivors. There are perhaps a dozen Natives that follow us on foot, their own rifles in their arms. We stop, and the guy that's been in charge, his name is Daniel, tells them, we are only here for the evacuation. The Natives nod, and we assume they are in contact with whoever is in charge of the Army. 

Up Skill Center road, to where the refugee camp is, and the tired old truck is turned off for the last time. Plenty of men come and help unload the truck, and we are all show to where we can sleep. This is it, we arrived. We made it. I look into the Go-Pro and smile, for the first time.

The video is uploaded, and that night, I see video replies from the gang, all happy to see, I made it. We are two weeks early, and it looks like we will be staying here, until they can send helicopters to pick us up. Meanwhile, we are given beds, and food, and drinks. We get fresh clothes, and even a chance to clean and reload our weapons. The Natives are kind, and wise, and knew about us coming well before we were aware of them. We are safe here.

By the time the helicopters arrive, we are all in much better shape. The flight from San Carlos to the last city, is long, and I sleep through most of it, but strangely, I have become a celebrity. I have people I have never met before, coming to me and telling me how brave I am, and knowing me by name, by sight. By the time we look out the windows of the helicopter, and see the sanctuary below, I am starting to feel hope. Yet something inside me, tells me, don't get too comfortable. I guess it is because I know, there are a lot of really bad people still alive, and they are armed, and dangerous. For now thought, I lean my head against the glass, smiling, and waiting for this nightmare to end.


End file.
